Transparency remains the sine qua non of the international development sector. We preach its value to others; we see open records laws, for example, as key indicators of good governance. But what we rarely discuss in the context of access to information, is the value not just of the data itself, but of transparency about how the data is analyzed.
Lots of studies come across each of our desks everyday. Some come directly from the folks conducting the studies; the Pew Research Center, for example, sends me a weekly email of their work. Some studies we learn about via the media: a news outlet itself or a pollster has completed a survey, and a news story summarizes the major takeaways. And some studies come to us another step removed: we pick up a book by Malcolm Gladwell or Ori Brafman, for example, and the author précis a study to argue his own insights.