Our sister regional agenda-setting workshop

The World Wide Web Foundation will hold the ‘Rebooting Open Data in Africa’ event on the 27th of March 2015 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia under the Open Data for Development network. Bringing together open data leaders and advocates, the workshop will seek to energise and strengthen a network of self-sustaining and African-owned organizations working on open data research and development to bring about a data revolution in the region.

The workshop will take place in Africa, where the Open Data Labs initiative is looking at the possibilities of expanding engagements in open data at a global south scale. Workshop activities will include talks and discussions on the following:

• Public budgeting, procurement and contracting;
• Ownership and behavior of private companies and key natural resources (energy, oil, gas, land, etc.);
• Public leadership integrity and performance (financial interests, performance campaign contributions, performance appraisals, records of debates, etc.);
• Realisation of human and peoples’ rights (census, women, health, education, inequalities, rights enjoyment or denial, etc.).

The Open Data Barometer, a review of the global state of open data and right to information, will be used to lay the ground and foster discussion. Through this event and the data revolution, crucial steps towards opening data for a more transparent Africa will be taken.

This regional agenda-setting workshop is hosted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and financially supported by the International Development Research Centre as part of the Harnessing Open Data to Achieve Development Results in Asia and Africa project and the High Level Conference on Data Revolution.

A highly insightful and successful sister workshop for Asia was hosted by the Open Data Lab Jakarta last month. Herein, issues surrounding open data in the region were identified together with solutions, concrete steps and priorities leading to the ideal state of open data in the region by 2020.

Stay updated and follow the event on Twitter using #ODAfrica2015 and #datarev