Enabling data sharing for social benefit through data institutions

The project intends to support data institutions by developing an ethical and fair standard of practices for the collection, storage, use, and sharing of data. Through an exploration of a selected use case on climate-induced migrations, the project is developing a trustworthy framework to ultimately be used by data institutions independent of use case context.

This project builds on a significant body of research commissioned by GPAI on both Data Trusts – exploring use cases about climate action, including climate migration; and Data Justice – developed a research agenda and practical guides with input from partner organisations from across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania, and proposed a roadmap for the responsible use of AI for the environment. This project continues this line of work, exploring practical contexts where data institutions and innovative data stewardship approaches (with a wider lens than data trusts) could enable an environment of trust for the development of responsible AI applications, specifically to help make a difference on climate-induced migration, with a primary focus on the Lake Chad Basin region.

The immediate impact of this project has been the value generated by mapping the data ecosystem and documenting the gaps and challenges which prevent establishing trust between those actors involved in the data chain in the data exchange system. Moreover, the project has identified opportunities to overcome these obstacles, including solutions proposed by local organisations and the associated strategies to implement them. As a result, several organisations have expressed interest in using the project’s framework in their various programs.