Secretary-General, Director, distinguished delegates, dear colleagues,
The United Nations system produces an extraordinary wealth of trusted, high-quality data and statistics.
As the Secretary-General highlighted, these data are crucial to public decision-making and essential for charting trends across the multiple dimensions of sustainable development.
Historically, UN data has been abundant but fragmented, spread across different organizations and platforms, and with disparate classifications and formats.
This fragmentation has practical consequences, especially important when the slow pace of global progress towards the SDGs is demanding deeper, actionable insights.
The UN System Data Commons is key to meeting this implementation challenge. It represents a unified effort across the UN system, bringing data from different sources together, efficiently and intelligently.
Today, we begin a new era in data integration, dissemination, and policy use.
Allow me to share four guiding principles for building the Data Common:
First, centralized access but distributed ownership.
While the UN System Data Commons operates through one central portal, ownership remains with the agencies providing the data. They are the authoritative sources; the Commons is the doorway and the bridge.
Second, rigorous interoperability.
We utilize rigorous, modern methods to connect data across different sources. They preserve statistical integrity and ensure that the correlations we observe are meaningful and accurate.
Third, built for both people and machines.
We use open-source technology designed for both human researchers and automated systems and applications. As the world turns to AI for answers, this direct access positions the UN as a trusted source in an increasingly automated landscape.
Fourth, a true spirit of collaboration with Member States and partners.
With these foundations, the Data Commons will evolve as new needs emerge, ready to integrate any additional indicators that Member States decide to include in a future development agenda.
Excellencies,
Before you are the early dividends of this approach. With twenty-six UN system entities joining the initiative so far, the platform now represents 44 million observations across more than 1,700 statistical series.
As a shared digital public infrastructure, this open resource allows governments, UN country teams and researchers to derive immediate value from trusted UN assets.
This launch also underscores a broader responsibility for UN DESA. Guided by the UN Statistical Commission and working closely with Chief Statisticians across the system, we are committed to strengthening global capacity for high-quality statistics.
Moving forward, we will continue to onboard new organizations; automate data flows; address data gaps; drive harmonization; and strengthen evidence-based decision-making.
Crucially, the experience we gain in building this shared infrastructure will allow us to better support Member States in modernizing their national statistical systems.
I invite you to view what we are launching today as not just a platform, but a foundation.
Together, we are making the knowledge of the United Nations easier to find, easier to connect and easier to use—all while keeping trust, statistical integrity and institutional accountability at its absolute core.
Thank you.