Africa’s data revolution probed in UN-backed report

Limited capacity, investment and
collaboration are among the challenges facing data communities working towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Africa’s Agenda 2063, according to the inaugural Africa Data Revolution Report (ADRR).

The report was presented last month during a panel discussion at the second Africa Open Data Conference held in Accra, Ghana. It cites issues such as legal and policy frameworks, infrastructure, technology and interactions among stakeholders as challenges facing the “data ecosystems” of the ten African countries studied: Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland and Tanzania. 

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The ADRR was jointly published by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), UN Development Programme (UNDP), World Wide Web Foundation and Open Data for Development Network (OD4D).
“Open data is Africa’s biggest challenge,” Nnenna Nwakanma, a Senior Policy manager at the US-headquartered World Wide Web Foundation said, noting that the open data revolution is key to Africa achieving the SDGs.
Speaking to SciDev.Net, Nwakanma, cited open data’s benefits such as governments functioning more efficiently, businesses innovating more and citizens participating in governance and demanding accountability.
Serge Kapto, a policy specialist on data from the UNDP, said that frameworks such as the African Charter on Statistics and the Strategy for Harmonisation of Statistics in Africa have laid the groundwork for an African data revolution.
“The report also points out that data is inherently as much a political as a technical issue,” Kapto notes.
“Therefore, the stumbling blocks that impede progress of the data revolution for sustainable development must be addressed on both political and technical levels,” he stated.