Help us improve age disaggregated data

6 min readMar 19, 2016

Your opportunity to take part in this process ends on 25 April 2016

This article is part of a series on age disaggregated data. Take a look and let us know what you think:

To make sure everyone benefits from the Global Goals we need to improve the quality, consistency and use of age disaggregated data and we need your help.

The internationally agreed Millennium Development Goals inspired the world to believe that it was possible to eradicate poverty. But their benefits were not felt by all. Those who were hardest to reach were too often locked out of development. They were denied the opportunity to create a better future for themselves. The Global Goals, which were agreed at the United Nations General Assembly, in September set out to change this. For the first time we have a global development framework which includes everyone. Goals can only be considered to be met if they are met for all. To do this our Prime Minister made a promise to put those who were furthest behind first. A promise to leave no one behind as we eradicate poverty and hunger for all by 2030.

So far so good. Here comes our wicked problem…

To ensure that the Global Goals truly leave no one behind and include everyone we need to be able to effectively monitor who is benefiting and who is being left out. We need to be able to break this information down to make sure that irrespective of your age, sex, disability and ethnicity, you are benefiting from development too. To do this we need a data revolution! Data need to be collected, disaggregated, analysed, used and disseminated for all people everywhere.

We have come a long way in understanding how to do this for disability but we need to radically improve data on age. To ensure that the Global Goals are inclusive of people of all ages and address the rights and needs of people of all ages we need to be able to effectively monitor development outcomes on the basis of age.

Currently much of the available data does not allow for an accurate story to be told about the lives of all people irrespective of their age. Much of the available household survey data in developing countries excludes people over the age of 49. This stops us from being able to track the impact of development programmes on older people. Similarly many surveys do not collect or routinely disaggregate data below the age of 15. This results in a failure to accurately describe the reality of day-to-day life of younger people. This stops us from being able to measure progress and prevents millions of people receiving the help they need.

OK, this sounds grim. What are you going to do about it?

To address this we are coming together to build consensus on the tools, process and methods that should be used to gather data on age. We are doing this so that we can disaggregate age data and inform policy and programme decisions.

We need your help!

We know that we can’t do this alone. We need help! So we are inviting academics, development organisations, statisticians, older people, young people and you to help us and to be part of our experiment in Open Policy Making on age data.

What is Open Policy Making?

Our friends over at the Cabinet Office Policy Lab tell us that Open Policy Making is better policy making. Through broadening the range of people we engage with and using new or different tools for analysis we open ourselves to new possibilities. Open Policy Making takes an agile, iterative approach to implementation. It’s about being open to new ideas, new ways of working, new insights, new evidence and new experts.

Open Policy Making is about developing and delivering policy in a fast-paced and increasingly networked and digital world through:

using collaborative approaches in the policy making process, so that policy is informed by a broad range of input and expertise and meets user needs,
applying new tools for analysis, insights and digital tools so that policy is data driven and evidence based, and
testing and improving policy to meet complex, changing user needs and making sure it be successfully implemented.

We are going to take elements of the Open Policy Making process and ethos and apply them to our quest to improve the collection, disaggregation, analysis, use and dissemination of age data. But we are not going to start from scratch. We’re going to stand on the shoulders of giants. Using advice, tools and tips from the Cabinet Office Policy Lab we’re planning to get a head start!

What happens next and how do I get involved?

One of our main goals is to see this problem from a range of different perspectives so that we can understand the impact that it is having on people making policy, statisticians, advocates and real life people like you and me. The good news is that we have already started. We have been reaching out to experts, academics and partners to help us to scope this work. They are going to help us to tell the story of this problem from a range of different perspectives.

You can share evidence, ideas, links and issues with us. So have your say. But the main opportunity to feed in will start on 4 April. We’ll post blogs right here that speak to the root of the problem, we’ll share our thinking on how to overcome the issues and we’ll as you for your help on this too. So watch this space. We will post a link to the survey and the email address to use.

These are the questions we need your help with

What experiences do you have with expanding household surveys to cover all age ranges?
What are the pros and cons of expanding data collection to all age ranges?
What experience do you have of surveys which have deliberately boosted samples for specific age groups or surveys designed to target certain specific age groups? What are the pros and cons of this approach?
Other than providing funds — how can partners be encouraged to expand household survey age ranges?

You can have your say too! There are two ways for you to feed in to this process:

Want to know more about age data and data disaggregation?

Want to know more about Open Policy Making?

The Policy Lab in the Cabinet Office have created lots of useful tools, guidance, case studies, tips and advice to help you take your first step toward a more open, collaborative and better policy making process. Pay them a visit over here. If you’re just getting started have a read at the Policy Lab’s introduction to design in policy making for more information on how to apply design thinking and policy making.
To follow this Open Policy Making process — follow DFID Inclusive Societies on Medium. We’re on Twitter too!