Data Service Center
In the Data Service Center a team of data scientists advises GIZ projects on how to collect, analyse, manage, and use various data. It is a key component to creating a more data-driven work environment at GIZ. Currently the Data Service Center works in three areas: Geospatial Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) as well as Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E). Other topics, such as Gender Data, are to follow.
Measuring deforestation at the push of a button
The analysis of geodata allows us to determine which areas in a region are being used for agriculture. In the same way, we can detect illegal deforestation, or track the effects of the climate crisis. For our projects around the world, geodata provides important insights that help them plan their activities more effectively and monitor change. The experts at the Data Service Center can help for example by providing advice on suitable data sets and creating customised maps.
Analysing documents in seconds
In the field of AI, the Data Service Center focuses on the algorithmic processing of text and speech, known as Natural Language Processing (NLP). For example, the team worked with the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network to develop a web application that analyses which Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) policy documents reference. The ability to carry out context-sensitive analysis, beyond keywords, is something that we are looking to implement across GIZ.
You can find our work on our Hugging Face Space.
Making impact tangible
Communicating the impact that our projects achieve is of fundamental value to GIZ: That is why it is important for us to be able to centrally store and analyse information on project activities and outcomes. For this purpose, the Data Service Center supports the standardised capturing and processing of monitoring data. In addition, it enables projects to access quality-assured analytics services for data-driven project management.
Please reach out to us if you would like to know more or are interested in collaborating. You can email us at dataservicecenter@giz.de or find out more on our GitHub Repository.