Remarks: How We Use Data to Help Small Island Developing States and Developing Nations Build Real Resilience

Remarks delivered by Stephen Keppel, President of PVBLIC Foundation regarding the SDG Data Alliance breakfast convening at PVBLIC Foundation's Press Briefing during the 81st Session of the UN General Assembly

Friday, 18 September 2026 | SDG Media Zone, United Nations Headquarters, New York City

As Delivered

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for making time to be here.

I am excited to talk to you about the SDG Data Alliance Breakfast, "Mobilizing Data,

Technology and Partnerships for Impact," which we're hosting next week, on

Wednesday, September 23rd, right here in the SDG Media Zone. This breakfast event

will bring together government ministers, UN leadership, private sector partners, and

foundations around a single question: how do we use data to help Small Island

Developing States and developing nations, build real resilience.

I want to be clear about something up front. This convening isn't the starting point of this work. It's a checkpoint. This breakfast exists because of two and a half years of

concrete action that came before it, and I'd like to walk you through some of that record,

because the numbers tell the story better than I can.

Since early 2024, PVBLIC Foundation and the SDG Data Alliance have committed

nearly $2 million of funding and staff time to build out the SIDS Global Data Hub, which

is a central data repository to support evidence-based decision-making across SIDS. 

The Data Hub provides access to new and relevant data sources, geospatial technology

enablers, innovative dashboards, and visualization tools – establishing a sustainable

and enduring repository for comprehensive data on SIDS for SIDS.

Our partner Esri has committed ArcGIS technology, Data Hub GIS infrastructure, and

in-kind professional services to every single SIDS nation, a contribution the Alliance

expects will exceed $5 million in value through 2034. 

What has that investment actually produced? In 2026, the SIDS Global Data Hub has

moved from prototype to a live, operating platform. This year the Data Alliance team has

made the SIDS Global Data Hub fully operational with first examples of statistical data.

It now features 11 SIDS Country Data Hubs which include Map Portfolios, Data Stories

and Graphic Data Visualizations. By the end of 2026, the SIDS Global Data Hub will

host Data Hubs and Map Portfolios for all 39 SIDS. 

Our partnership base has grown as well and now includes the WK Kellogg Foundation,

Esri, Fugro, Geospatial World, the Pacific Community, and the Organization of Eastern

Caribbean States, and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

Since 2024 we’ve been highlighting this work on the world's largest stages: including the UN Oceans Summit in Nice, COP29 and 30 in Belem, Climate Week, and right here at

UN Headquarters during the UN General Assembly. 

At each of those events, the message has been the same. Governments don't need

more reports. They need tools that turn information into coordinated action and this is

exactly the gap the SDG Data Alliance is built to close.

So I just described what has already happened with the SDG Data Alliance and the

SIDS Global Data Hub. Next Wednesday's breakfast is where we bring the people

responsible for that progress, and the people who can help scale it, into the same room.

Dr. Greg Scott, our SDG Data Alliance Executive Director, will lay out how the Alliance

is integrating foundational data to scale impact. We'll hear directly from SIDS leaders,

including AOSIS, and from partners across the Caribbean, Pacific, and AIS regions,

about what mobilizing data for impact looks like on the ground. We'll also formally sign a

new partnership agreement with Geosat to provide new earth observation and satellite

data to SIDS, one more concrete step rather than another statement of intent.

The purpose of the breakfast on Wednesday is to ask, together with the leaders in that

room, what comes next. Where do we take the Country Data Hub model from here?

How do we close the remaining funding gap for in-country rollout? Which partnerships

still need to be built?

The work of the last two and a half years proves that when data, technology, and

partnership move together, small islands and developing nations can leapfrog problems

that once looked intractable. Governments don't need more reports, they need tools that turn information into coordinated action. That is what this record has built, and next

Wednesday isn't a celebration of it. It's a working session on how much further, and how

much faster, we can take it.

Thank you.