Data is essential to guide evidence-based decision-making, a critical best practice toward informed policy development.

A recent Government Accountability Office report has taken the government to task for failing to properly implement empirically sound and evidence-based practices as part of their deliberative process.

To encourage evidence-based decision-making, the recent President’s Management Agenda laid out a new cross-agency priority goal—“Leveraging Data as a Strategic Asset”—to develop and implement a comprehensive federal data strategy. Over the course of the next year, with input from the full spectrum of government and non-government stakeholders, the first governmentwide data strategy will be developed, along with specific recommendations for implementation. Office of Management and Budget sought to inform this process by issuing a comment draft in June.

By most accounts, the commitment to an overarching federal data strategy is welcome and timely. Huge amounts of data collected and managed by the federal government can be applied in a large variety of ways to foster economic growth and social good.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.nextgov.com/ideas/2018/10/are-gsas-bold-data-management-and-transparency-moves-right-moves/152043/