The state is one of the main producers of data in the country. In turn, data is a fundamental input for the design of more efficient and effective public policies. For this reason, it is essential to promote its use. This is not an easy task: information is fragmented into different units that do not optimally exchange information. Although several efforts have been made in recent years to move in this direction, there are still significant gaps in the integration of systems and the exchange of information between different departments.

This situation can be explained by a lack of prioritisation of the issue, the absence of a structure in charge of implementing a national strategy for data management, and a legal and juridical framework that is not fully used in practice. These are all challenges that we need to address in order to have a smart state, capable of generating evidence-based public policies and managing in a more informed and efficient way.

It is essential to assess whether we are making full and correct use of the data we produce to make evidence-based public policy decisions. It is also essential to propose and analyse possible ways to improve the use of data at the state level. In this series, we address key issues that public sector organisations can address in data governance.