The UN System Data Commons is a shared platform that makes trusted data from across the United Nations easier to find, compare and use.
At launch, the platform brings together approximately 43.9 million statistical observations across 1,785 statistical series and 388 national and supranational geographic areas and groupings. The data come from 17 UN agencies and custodian systems, with nine more UN agencies in the pipeline.
Until now, differences in labels, classifications, units and geographic references have made it difficult to connect data from different UN sources. The Data Commons addresses this through a common statistical model, including 329 canonical codelists, 9,537 series-level conformance decisions and 63,071 code-level mappings.
The harmonized data are organized within a governed knowledge graph, supported by a common geography framework and a shared taxonomy of 12 Themes and 80 Subthemes. This helps users identify relationships between statistical variables and produce more meaningful comparisons, analyses and visualizations.
The platform can also connect with AI applications through the Model Context Protocol, creating a foundation for more integrated, machine-actionable and AI-ready UN data services. In June, during a hackathon held as part of UN Open Source Week, young innovators used the Data Commons to develop a range of AI-driven solutions.
The UN System Data Commons is a major contribution to Work Package 16 of the UN80 initiative. It is co-led by UNICEF, the Executive Office of the Secretary-General and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, working with participating agencies and custodian systems across the UN.