USAID envisions an interconnected, well-functioning digital world that supports advancing countrywide progress toward self-reliance under USAID’s Journey to Self-Reliance (J2SR), where data and data systems help to advance sustainable development goals. In an increasingly complex world that faces multiple, interconnected threats – from COVID-19 and climate change to conflict and diminishing resources – it’s clear that building and strengthening local, regional and national data systems in low- and medium-income countries is essential to strengthening the ability to plan for, respond to and recover from a wide range of development needs and emergencies. Local, regional and national policy-makers and stakeholders are geographically best placed to inform decision-making, but without reliable, trustworthy data and data systems, they are critically vulnerable to making poor and untimely decisions.