The writer is chair of the UN Statistical Commission
When the UN created a Statistical Commission in 1946, the world was still recovering from the devastation of the second world war. Then, there was broad consensus that only reliable, internationally comparable data could prevent conflict, combat poverty and anchor global co-operation. Nearly 80 years later, this insight remains just as relevant, but the context has changed dramatically.
The world now faces geopolitical and environmental crises as well as a profound digital transformation. Data has become a strategic asset. Controlling it today means influence over the future. The rapid rise of AI, powered by vast volumes of data, presents the UN with a daunting challenge: those who control data today will shape AI tomorrow — and with it, the narratives that define public life. As the influence of commercial platforms and algorithmic systems grows, public institutions are falling behind. National statistical offices — the backbone of independent data production — are under severe financial pressure.
This erosion of institutional capacity could not come at a more critical moment. The UN is unable to respond adequately as it is facing a staffing shortfall itself. Due to ongoing austerity measures at the UN, many senior positions remain vacant, and the director of the UN Statistics Division has retired, with no successor appointed. This comes at a time when bold and innovative initiatives — such as a newly envisioned Trusted Data Observatory — are urgently needed to make official statistics more accessible and machine-readable.
Meanwhile, the threat of targeted disinformation is growing. On social media, distorted or manipulated content spreads at unprecedented speed. Emerging tools like AI chatbots exacerbate the problem. These systems rely on web content, not verified data, and are not built to separate truth from falsehood. Making matters worse, many governments cannot currently make their data usable for AI because it is not standardised, not machine-readable, or not openly accessible. The space for sober, evidence-based discourse is shrinking.
This trend undermines public trust in institutions, strips policymaking of its legitimacy, and jeopardises the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Without reliable data, governments will be flying blind — or worse: they will be deliberately misled.
When countries lose control of their own data, or cannot integrate it into global decision-making processes, they become bystanders to their own development. Decisions about their economies, societies and environments are then outsourced to AI systems trained on skewed, unrepresentative data. The global south is particularly at risk, with many countries lacking access to quality data infrastructures. In countries such as Ethiopia, unverified information spreading rapidly on social media has fuelled misinformation-driven violence.
The Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated that strong data systems enable better crisis response. To counter these risks, the creation of a global Trusted Data Observatory (TDO) is essential. This UN co-ordinated, democratically governed platform would help catalogue and make accessible trusted data around the world — while fully respecting national sovereignty.
It would host a global metadata catalogue, a specialised search engine that indicates what data exists, where it is stored, how it was collected and how reliable it is. Crucially, the raw data would remain under the control of its national producers, ensuring that high-quality data is transparent, interoperable and usable in the AI age. The TDO would support trust where today there is doubt.
History has shown us the consequences of neglecting the public interest in digital spaces. A small number of technology companies now dominate vast swaths of digital infrastructure, control data flows, and shape public discourse at scale. We must not repeat these mistakes with AI and data.
Data must not be treated as the exclusive property of the few. It is a global public good, and the UN must step up as its steward — so that citizens, institutions, and governments alike can make decisions based on trustworthy, inclusive data. Achieving this vision requires political will, investment in institutional and technical capacities, and new partnerships between governments, academia, civil society, and the private sector.
A recent UN conference recognised that high quality data and statistics enable evidence-based policy decisions and enhance accountability and transparency. But action must follow: the future of democracy, development and peace will depend on whether we put trustworthy data at the heart of global governance.
