From your own perspective, comment on the role and significance of data in policy development, as compared with the other influential factors within society.

The ability to acquire, analyze and report on data can be viewed as playing a crucial role in policy development, insofar as it provides the informational foundation for the formation of policy. (Malanick et al., p. 21) With an understanding of the precise information, for example, in the cases of health and population data, developing countries are able to manage their policy in a manner that is consistent with supported facts. In this manner, data can be given an importance equivalent to communication technologies in developing countries, to the extent that data is essentially what is transmitted by communication technologies: the former is inseparable from the latter.

Concomitantly, the sheer amount of such data produced by expanding information technologies requires a concomitant growth of human capital in order to properly interpret and analyze such data. In other words, the latter is essentially vacuous if not understood and applied properly. In this manner, the importance conferred to data in developing countries must be actualized with a harmonious importance conferred to both communication technologies that allow data to be amassed and to the human capital that may study this data, such that the information gained is used in an effective manner.

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