Data, both qualitative and quantitative, are increasingly becoming important in the field of development. Organizations often collect significant amounts of data, and there is a plethora of publicly available data that most people have easy access to. Data, when handled thoughtfully, can provide critical insight into developmental problems and point the way to action. Being able to analyze data meaningfully and communicate the results effectively are important skills for development professionals. 

R is a useful tool to handle large amounts of data and analyze them. This course introduces students to the use of R in the context of statistical analysis and handling data used in the development sector. The course will introduce students to some key statistical concepts that are essential for data handling and then show them how those concepts can be applied in real world data analysis. The data sets that will be used will be publicly available data sets, both quantitative and qualitative. It will further teach them to create data visualizations that can narrate development stories based on the data.

By the end of the course, students will be adept at handling data using R and thinking of useful ways to visually present the data and perform basic statistical analysis on them.