Programme

Advancing a healthy planet where ecosystems and people thrive requires reliable, accessible, decision-relevant information. However, data regarding the world’s ecosystems are often unavailable, unusable and/or unused. A lack of data hinders conservation and reversal of the degradation of the world’s ecosystems.

It results in poor resource management decisions, poor law enforcement, and weak political momentum. Citizens can be shut out of decisions that affect their livelihoods and well-being. It can facilitate corruption and prevent accountability.

Data transparency combined with citizen engagement can drive accountability. And accountability leads to more responsible and better decisions. Public and private actors are more likely to make environmentally and socially responsible choices if they know that they are being held accountable by the public.

In 2018, The World Resources Institute (WRI) launched Resource Watch, an open, freely accessible, online global data platform that unites technology, data transparency, and partners to drive sustainable management of the planet’s resources and improve planetary health.

The development of Resource Watch was finalized with the successful launch of MyResourceWatch, a feature through which users can make location-specific analyses by combining their own data with the global data sets provided in Resource Watch. The platform was also used as a basis for developing other apps or tools. This spin-off led to 19 new tools on a variety of environmental issues.

Resource Watch features more than 360 data sets in one place on the state of the planet’s resources and citizens. Users can visualize, create dashboards and overlay data across challenges facing people and the planet, from climate change to poverty, water risk to state fragility, air pollution to human migration, and more. See for yourself at https://resourcewatch.org/.