Measurement as soft power

Updated: 2025.07.21 7M ago 3 sources
Funding global survey platforms shapes agendas, standards, and credibility; withdrawal cedes influence or creates vacuums. — Who pays for and governs data infrastructure determines whose priorities define global health metrics and policy benchmarks.

Sources

The Demographic and Health Surveys brought crucial data for more than 90 countries — without them, we risk darkness
Saloni Dattani 2025.07.21 100% relevant
DHS’s prospective shutdown highlights how U.S. support has underpinned independent checks on official records and globally trusted estimates.
How does the World Bank classify countries by income?
Pablo Arriagada 2025.07.14 78% relevant
By explaining why the World Bank’s exchange-rate-based GNI metric (not PPP) anchors a globally adopted taxonomy, the piece shows how a single institution’s measurement choices propagate through research, dashboards, and policy discourse, shaping agendas and perceived progress.
Africa's Poor Numbers
Inquisitive Bird 2025.06.22 75% relevant
With weak national statistical offices and unreliable base data, multilaterals’ and donors’ modeled figures (e.g., World Bank poverty/GDP series) become the de facto truth, transferring agenda-setting power over Africa’s narrative to those who fund and govern the data systems.
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