This guide is designed for governments, international organizations, and others interested in developing, engaging with and supporting CGD initiatives. It presents a list of distinction criteria between CGD methods, highlights the benefits and pitfalls of CGD, and provides a basis for strategic engagement with CGD. The guide draws from an analytical framework presented in the report Advancing sustainability together? Citizen-generated data and the Sustainable Development Goals. The analytical framework revolves around three aspects: workflows to generate data; participation; and data’s fitness for purpose. The report illustrates these nuances through several case studies and a discussion of how CGD can support implementation and monitoring of the SDGs.

Each section of the guide is accompanied by CGD examples. The guide summarizes experiences from extensive research, and draws inspiration from existing toolkits to recommend civic technologies, as well as the many existing toolkits for participatory mapping, citizen sensing, citizen science and other data-related activities. You can find a list of the tools that inspired us at the end.

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