DevDat
Data for Sustainable Development
DevDat is a data expertise center established by Jeroen Smits, specialized in data enrichment, subnational indicators, prediction models and research focused on low and middle income countries (LMICs).
Our indicators at the level of provinces and small-area grids reveal variation within and between countries regarding wealth, poverty, education, health, gender, infrastructure, corruption and vulnerability.
We provide a unique window to the developing world through which major developments can be observed and analyzed with a degree of detail that has never been possible before.
All our indicators and analyses are based on the Database Developing World, one of the largest household level databases for developing countries, with information on over 35 million individuals in almost all LMICs.
Aims & Opportunities
Creating detailed overview scans of regions for political or humanitarian purposes, including monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals.
Analyzing and monitoring large-scale demographic, socio-economic, behavioral, political, cultural, health, institutional and environmental changes taking place throughout the developing world.
Connecting human-system data at small-area level with earth-system data on the physical, geographical and biological environment in which people live to study (hu)man-environment interactions.
Recent projects of DevDat founder Jeroen Smits
Construction of the global Subnational Corruption Database (SCD) with indicators for grand and petty corruption in 1400+ regions across the globe. Joint project with the ETH-Zürich. Find publication here.
Development of the national and subnational versions of the GDL (climate-change) Vulnerability Index (GVI) and using this index to create projections of climate change vulnerability until 2100 along the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways. Joint project with Climate Analytics, the Humboldt University and Climate Media in Berlin. Find publications here, here and here. For visualizations and data downloads, visit the GVI pages of the Global Data Lab.
Development of baseline indicators at subnational level to indicate the situation in Gaza and the Palestine Territories before the Israeli attacks, for the UNDP report: Gaza War: Expected Socio-Economic Impacts on the State of Palestine, November 2023. Find report here.
Development of subnational indicators for monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals in Somalia in 2023. Collaboration with Statistical Office of Somalia, UNDP Somalia and Data Act Lab. Indicators available in the Somalia Goaltracker.
Background study on subnational human development for the 2019 Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme:"Beyond income, beyond averages, beyond today: Inequalities in human development in the 21st century". Find report here.
Construction of Subnational Human Development Database with values of the UNDPs Human Development Index and its underlying subindices for 1600+ subnational regions across the globe. Joint project with the the Center of Demographic Studies in Barcelona. Find publication here.
Analysis of the Demographic Window of Opportunity as a motor of economic growth in low and middle income countries. Joint project with the ETH-Zürich. Find publication here.
Presenting the Domestic Transition as pathway towards a decent standard of living of households in low and middle income countries. Find publication here.
Assessment of the determinants of birth registration in Africa. Find publication here.
DevDat is registered in The Netherlands under Chamber of Commerce nr. 88154343 and VAT nr. NL004551885B88