Open Data in Developing Countries: State of The Art

Open Data in Developing Countries: State of the Art
Supported by
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Authors: Stephane Boyera (stephane@sbc4d.com)
CarlosIglesias(carlos@sbc4d.com)
Date:6June2014
Version1.00
Executive Summary
This report summarizes the StateoftheArt study developed by SBC4D for the Partnership for
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Open Data (POD). This study had the objectives to identify key stakeholders that could be
potential partners with POD, enabling the Open Data domain to achieve its full potential in terms
ofdevelopmentopportunitiesforlowandmiddleincomecountries.
Interviews and online questionnaire among the 160+ actors identified has led to a number of
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findingsthataresummarizedbelow:
The number of actors interested in Open Data in Developing Countries is growing

quickly. The study has identified 160+ organizations. It is important to note that a majority
of them are just engaging in the domain and have little past experience. Most of these
actors are focused on OD as an objective not a tool or means to increase impact or
outcome.
In terms of countries, 44 Low and Middle Income Countries are engaged in opening their
publicdata.
In terms of topics, Transparency and Accountability of governments, donors and
corporatesisthefocusofmostorganizations.
Local actors are strong advocates of public data release. Lots of them are also
promoting the reuse of existing data (through e.g. the organization of training,
hackathons and alike). However, the study has not identified many actors practically
usingODintheirworkorengagedinreleasingtheirowndata.
There is very little connection between OD and initiatives focusing on expanding ICT
accessandbenefitstounderprivilegedcommunitiesindevelopingcountries
Traditional development sectors (health, education, agriculture, energy, transport) are not
yetthetargetofmanyinitiatives,andareclearlyunderdevelopedintermsofusecases.
There is very little connection between horizontal (e.g. national OD initiatives) and vertical
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ThisresearchwassupportedbythePartnershipforOpenDatacontactPODatinfo@p4od.organd/orjoin
themailinglistathttp://lists.p4od.org/mailman/listinfo/p4od
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http://www.sbc4d.com
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Seetheconsolidatedresponsesat
https://docs.google.com/a/sbc4d.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aj2gGPdyh5L7dHk4U3Bhd0tCMTZTLVcxQU
RHVVA2YXc&usp=drive_web#gid=0
(sectorspecificinitiativesone.g.extractiveindustry,ordisastermanagement)activities
In terms of geography, while some countries are at the early phases of their OD
engagement,itseemsthatsomeofthefirstmovershavelosttheirearlymomentum.
In terms of funding, very few donors have a dedicated budget line attached to Open Data.
Most of them mix OD funding with funding dedicated to Open Government. Some major
players(e.g.TheWorldBank,DFID)arestartingtomainstreamODinalltheiractivities.
Based on these key elements, the study proposes a set of recommendations summarized
below:
This study provides a snapshot of the actors in the domain as of April 2014. Given the
pace of evolution, it is likely that this repository will get outdated rapidly. Therefore, it
would be critical to use the data collected in this study to build a live searchable
repositoryofactorsinthedomainthatcouldbeupdatedbythecommunity.
It is essential to create links and synergies between vertical and horizontal activities. It
would be very valuable to integrate all the domainspecific initiatives in national initiatives
andverticalinitiativesshouldalsoexplorefurtherhowtolinkwithNationalODInitiatives
InordertostrengthentheODecosystem,itwouldbecriticaltobuildcapacitiesamong
CSOsnotonlytoreusedatabutalsotopublishtheirowndata.
Along the same line, the quality, completeness and reliability of data has been highlighted
as a major challenge in the domain. There is low confidence and trust in the data
published e.g. on national open data portal of developing countries. It is essential to
address this area. For instance consider using an OD process for improvement through
mashupfromdifferentsourcesthatwouldleadtoglobaluptake.
In terms of investment, in order to establish stronger foundation for a national ecosystem,
it may be interesting for POD to support components that may be more difficult in terms
of time and costs to launch but which could have a greater lasting impact. Examples of
suchcomponentsincludemobilelabinitiatives
There is a growing interest in privacy and anonymization of data. Further research in this
area should be engaged to identify risks and challenges, and to establish processes to
improvecitizenprivacyprotection.
Global data standards are required to ease country comparison and mashup of data. It
would be beneficial for the domain to revive initiatives like GODI (Global Open Data
Initiative).
In order to bring more social and economic benefits to Developing Countries, it would be
important to develop further OD focus on development sectors (health, agriculture,
education, etc.). In each of these sectors, it would be important to identify the few areas
where OD could make a difference and start the development of related vertical activities.
One possible way to initiate this process is to engage cooperation with the ICT for
Development(ICTDorICT4D)sectorandleverageexistinginitiatives.
Finally, a few new untapped opportunities are starting to appear. In particular, mobile
operator data seems to be a source of incredibly valuable information given the
importance of mobile in Developing Countries. While there a tremendous work to do in
such areas in terms of data standards, algorithm for analysis, anonymization, application
of results, etc., specific workstream and investigations should be launched with mobile
operatorsthatarepioneersinthedomain.
Along with this document, the study comes with a list of actors that were covered , as well as a
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state of OD in Low and Middle Income Countries , and the list of questionnaire responses and
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interviewsforwhichparticipantsagreedtohavetheircontributionpublished .
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4
https://docs.google.com/a/sbc4d.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aj2gGPdyh5L7dHdpcmRES3ludDFBbDdjbW
MzTUhwT0E#gid=0
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https://docs.google.com/a/sbc4d.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aj2gGPdyh5L7dEtSVWladjBnOUllbWswRDI
wU2U3ZEE&usp=drive_web#gid=0
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Table of Contents
ExecutiveSummary
1.Introduction
2.Keyfindings
2.1.GlobalFindings
2.2.Vision&Angleofattack
2.3.Activities
2.4.Countries
2.5.Funding
3.KeyActors
3.1.MajorGlobalactors
3.2.MajorRegionalActors
3.3.InnovativeActors
4.GlobalSurveyResults
5.Recommendations
5.1.Activities
5.2.Countries
6.Conclusion
1. Introduction
This report summarizes the StateOftheArt (SOA) study developed by SBC4D for the
Partnership for Open Data (POD). Open data as a concept has its origins in the belief that data
should be freely available for use and publishing without limitations or control. This fundamental
idea has spread across the world and is increasing the demand for data to be made available in
nonproprietary, machinereadable formats without limitations on use and reuse. Demand is
especially strong for governments to follow suit and release all public data under Open Data.
While the developed countries of the world like the UK and the US have been the early movers,
demandisescalatinginthedevelopingcountriesaswell.
Several developing countries have either launched reservoirs of such datasets online, or are
working towards implementing open data initiatives in the near future. At the same time they are
grappling with issues linked to niche areas of data demand and linked supply. National and
international organizations, CSOs, academic institutions and private sector companies have
alsojoinedforcedtowardsamoredataenabledsociety.
On the nonprofit side demand for data is usually linked to ensuring transparency and
accountability of the local and federal governments, while the private sector is seeking new
products and avenues to unlock economic value. This movement is perhaps still in its infancy in
the context of the developing world and there are lots of opportunities to learn, adapt and grow
thesector.
There is also a critical work that needs to be carried out to explore the commonalities but also
the differences between developed and developing countries in terms of OD initiatives.
Challenges and opportunities are indeed slightly different. Elements such as (un)availability of
electronic data, data collection, release of data in countries with centuries of tradition of secrecy,
etc. must be carefully taken into account. On the other end, improvement of public services, jobs
for youth, social and economic development are major opportunities. How to address the
challenges to unlock this potential is the key question to address in the future, and where POD
hasamajorroletoplay.
This study is a first small step in that direction and fulfils one key requirement: identifying key
stakeholders that could be potential partners with POD, enabling the OD domain to achieve its
fullpotentialintermsofdevelopmentopportunitiesforlowandmiddleincomecountries.
Thedocumentisstructuredin4majorsections:
Key findings summarizing the the key elements that emerged through interviews and
onlinequestionnaires
Keyactorshighlightingthemajoractorsinthedomain
Global Survey Results summarizing the output on the online questionnaire used for the
study
KeyRecommendationsproposingafewdirectionstoexploreinthenearfuture.
The Annex A presents the methodology used in the study and some background information for
readerswhoarenotfamiliarwiththespecificitiesofDevelopingCountriescontext.
Along with this document, the study comes with a list of actors that were covered , as well as a
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state of OD in Low and Middle Income Countries , and the list of questionnaire responses and
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interviewsforwhichparticipantsagreedtohavetheircontributionpublished .
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https://docs.google.com/a/sbc4d.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aj2gGPdyh5L7dHdpcmRES3ludDFBbDdjbW
MzTUhwT0E#gid=0
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https://docs.google.com/a/sbc4d.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aj2gGPdyh5L7dEtSVWladjBnOUllbWswRDI
wU2U3ZEE&usp=drive_web#gid=0
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2. Key findings
This section summarizes the key findings of this study. It is structured in 5 parts detailing the
overall findings, then the specificities in terms of vision and approaches to OD, activities that are
deployedinthefield,countriesandfunding&investments.
2.1. Global Findings

Thestudyhighlightedimportantelementsinthedomainofopendataindevelopingcountries.
Size of community: at least 160, mostly new

The first noticeable point is the size of the community. While there are only a few major actors
that are wellknown and highly visible (see the Actors section in the document), the community
includes a large number of smaller organizations that are usually working at a local level,
focusing usually on one topic and on one activity. We have identified in total more than 160
actors, and there is a possibility of far more because the study didnt have the scope to
investigate country by country. Several actors are noncommercial, and even the commercial
onesareusuallysmall.
However, it is interesting to note that the topic seems trendy, and majority of actors have very
little past experience but are planning to engage in the domain in the near future. This is an
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opportunity for POD to be an umbrella partnership to engage these actors, help them in building
their capacities in the domain, and becoming contributors in the future. The detailed analysis is in
thethirdsectionofthisdocument,GlobalSurveyResults.
Focus of actors: OD as objective not a tool

The second interesting point is related to the focus of the different actors the study covered. The
vast majority are focused on OD as an objective not a tool or means to increase impact
or outcome. Moreover, lots of actors are approaching OD from the Right to
Information/Freedom of Information (RTI/FOI) perspective, creating a bias in the way they
consider OD. Very few actors, particularly those working at the local level, are (re)users
of OD in their work, but most of them are promoting the reuse, or advocating for more
datatobereleased.
In the same way, the study didnt find many actors, outside governments where there is a
national initiative, that are releasing data about their own operation. More generally, there is a
strong separation between the socalled demandside and supplyside of data, and we have
foundalmostnoactorsbeingbothaproviderandareuserofopendata .
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Some organizations are saying that this is a new focus for them, some are saying that they have
experiences, but without providing any evidences or the projects they mention to demonstrate their
experiencearenotrelatedtoOD
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AnexceptionthatisworthnotingistheFrenchGovernmentwhodiddesignaninnovativeportalfor
In the same way, the study has found very little evidence related to work improving the quality of
data through an OD process. A number of actors highlighted the fact that despite many
countries engaging in releasing their data, the quality and the reliability of this data in LMICs is
questionable. The release of datasets could be an opportunity to improve them through
comparison with other primary sources (e.g. household surveys run by international
organizations), but the study didnt find examples of such a process taking place, and the focus
isusuallyonlyonthereuseofpublisheddata.
Little connection to ICT initiatives

Finally, it is important to note that while ICT and the Web are important building blocks of OD, the
study found very little connection with initiatives focusing on expanding ICT access and
benefits to underprivileged communities in developing countries (see the Context
section). While there are lots of investment in this area, and in particular the ICT for development
sector (mHealth, mAgriculture, mEducation etc.), any of these initiatives are linked one way or
another to availability of specific datasets. This might be related to the limited work happening in
the development sectors (Agriculture, Health, Education) around OD (see the next subsection),
butitisclearthatthetwocommunitiesarenotwellconnected.
2.2. Vision & Angle of attack

Transparency and accountability
This subsection highlights the focus of the different actors in terms of vision and role of OD in
their strategy. The vast majority of organizations the study covered are centred on
transparency and accountability. This concerns all actor categories (public or private donor,
international organizations, CSOs, etc.), and most of the activities are about on using OD for
greatertransparencyandaccountability.
In most cases, the focus is on government transparency and accountability, but some
specific sectors (e.g. extractive industry, construction sector) or specific type of organizations
(e.g. donors) are also the target of some of the initiatives. It seems that this angle of attack (OD
for transparency) is growing and targeting more and more sectors and actors (e.g. private
companies).
The theme of transparency and accountability is an umbrella under which a growing set of
initiatives are developing targeting mainly for now finance aspects: Open contracting, Open
Budgeting,OpenAid(IATI),etc.
data.gouv.frthatleveragecooperationwithcivilsociety,andincludeintheportalexternaldatasets.
Traditional development sectors: The missing piece
Outside the transparency area, it seems that the traditional development sectors (health,
education, agriculture, energy, transport) are not yet the target of many initiatives, and
are clearly underdeveloped in terms of usecases. The only area that seems to be
developing is related to climate change where a few initiatives are complementing each
other. Transport is also a domain area of focus in a few countries, but not as developed and
integratedasinclimatechange.
The situation may change rapidly, and new approaches are developing. For example in
agriculture, the newly launched Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition initiative (GODAN)
is the first integrated step in the sector . In the energy sector, the Renewable Energy and
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Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) is planning to take the lead on the role of OD. In health
oreducation,thestudywasnotabletoidentifysuchglobalapproach .
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In summary, the study didnt find any integrated approach exploring the role of OD in
these development sectors, with the exception of climate change and, to a smaller
extent,transport.
2.3. Activities
Intermsofactivities,thestudyshowsthatthereareclearly2typesofinitiativesoractivities:
Horizontal activities: Activities that are looking towards opening data in a

sectoragnostic way and creating an OD ecosystem. This is typically OGDrelated
approaches(OpenGovernmentDataakadevelopinganationalopendatainitiative)
Vertical activities: Activities that are focusing on a specific sector or theme: Extractive
industry,Aid,Transport,Media,etc.
Horizontal activities
Concerning horizontal activities, The World Bank (TWB) is clearly the major actor in this area
and has designed an Open Data Readiness Assessment methodology covering the whole
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project lifecycle of developing a national OD initiative. A couple of other actors (e.g. Web
Foundation, UNDESA) have developed their own methodology for OD assessment, which does
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AfewspecificpiecesofworkonODandAgriculturearealsodrivenbyspecificactorsatverylowscale
e.g.VUUniversityworkaspartofW4RA
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Someinitiativesineachareahavebeenidentifiede.g.Checkmyschool:http://www.checkmyschool.org/in
Education,orPublicHealthResearchDataForum
(http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Aboutus/Policy/Spotlightissues/Datasharing/Publichealthandepidemiology/
WTDV030689.htm)ledbytheWellcomeTrustandthatgather19donorspromotingOpenresearchand
sharingofdatainhealth.Inthesameway,theILDAprojectinLatinAmericacoversthesethemes.However,
theseinitiativesdonothaveanholisticapproachtothedomainorarelimitedtoe.g.research&
documentationfornow.
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http://data.worldbank.org/opengovernmentdatatoolkit
notsignificantlydifferfromTWBs,evenifinsomecasesthereisagreateremphasisonCSOs.
These horizontal activities always aim at developing a global ecosystem, and always take into
accountintheirroadmapthedevelopmentofreuseofdata(akathedemandside).
However, it is important to note that the approach developed by TWB should be considered as a
kickstart process that aims to create rapid early interest among the different stakeholders
leading to a longterm engagement with the ecosystem. Lots of activities are therefore oneshot,
shortterm actions such as organization of hackathons or bootcamps, and only a few are looking
at the long term (e.g. code4 fellowship model) and at the establishment of longterm instruments
(e.g.opendatahub).
Vertical activities
Concerning vertical activities, lots of subdomains of the transparency area, particularly related to
public finance management (PFM) have a dedicated initiative. Some other domains as well e.g.
Open Climate, Open Transport, etc. The Key Actors lists most of them. All these initiatives
followmoreorlessthesamepatternstructuredaround4dimensionsorcomponents:
1. Data standards: Data standards are developed to cope with the specificities on the
domain considered, allowing interoperability, mash up and comparisons among datasets.
E.gIATIstandard,oropencontractingextensionforextractiveindustryspecificities
2. Tools: Initiatives are supporting the development of tools to exploit data available. This
includes2elements:
a. Core tools of the domain: Specific applications that are essential for the domain
considered(e.g.OpenStreetMapforOpenDRI).
b. Innovative tools: the organization of competition to leverage innovation around the
datasetsofthedomain.
3. Registry(ies): Data portal where the datasets related to the domain are stored and
accessible
4. Geographically Approach: Most of the initiatives mix global approach (i.e. the 3
elements mentioned above) and local actions to ensure that there is a local impact of the
initiative. E.g. EITI (Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative) hackathon is Ghana or
Nigeria.
Interaction between vertical and horizontal activities

It is interesting to note that while it seems that synergies should exist between the vertical and
the horizontal approaches, there is close to no link between the two. For instance, none of the
vertical initiatives explore (or at least expose) how to take advantage of a national OD initiative,
which datasets the domain specifically needs etc. In the same way, the horizontal approaches
do not explore in a systematic way the opportunities for specific vertical initiatives to develop in a
givencountry.
One exception is the work around media led by a number of partners (TWB, AMI, etc.) that work
handinhand with the development of a national initiative, and have designed a set of activities to
ensure that media in a given country is a strong part of the demandside. This example shows
thatlinkagescanbedevelopedbetweenhorizontalandverticalactivitiesatacountrylevel.
Finally, it is interesting to note that the notion of common data standards for OD is a topic that is
surfacing in almost all vertical activities, but are not really addressed at the global level. There
are no common standards for most of the datasets and this is a major issue to leverage
mashup,comparisonandexploitationofdatasets.
2.4. Countries
In terms of countries, there is clearly a growing interest and number of initiatives developing in
LMIC. In most cases, the incentive is linked to the participation in the Open Government
Partnership (OGP), even if the number OD commitments are low. OGP seems clearly to be a
catalyst, together with the World Bank activities and promotion of OD as part of its technical
assistanceportfolio,forbringingLMICsonboard.
However, it is important to note that countries engagement is not geographically homogeneous.

While many Englishspeaking countries in East and West Africa, many countries in Latin
America, and a few leading countries in central America, Eastern Europe and South and
SouthEast Asia are engaging in OD, there are almost no countries from the Frenchspeaking
West Africa or northern Africa and very few countries in southern Africa, central America or
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SouthandSouthEastAsia.
Finally, it is interesting to note that while some countries are at the early phases of their OD
engagement, it seems that some of the first movers have lost their original momentum. A
good example is the case in Kenya, that was the first African country engaging in a national OD
initiative. Partly due to the recent political change (2013), the KODI (Kenya Open Data Initiative)
is now more or less stalled, and would need a new series of activities to move again. This might
be the results of the type of activities engaged at the country level (oneshot type of activities as
describedintheprevioussubsection).
2.5. Funding
In terms of funding, the study covered a wide variety of organizations from private donors, to
internationalorganizationstocountryspecificdevelopmentagencies.
With the exception of a couple of donors (e.g. IDRC), none of the organizations investigated
have a dedicated budget line attached to Open Data. It was almost impossible to have a
sense of the amount of investment that have been engaged in OD or that are planned for the
nextfewyears.
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OneexceptionisBurkinaFasothatisdevelopingitsNationalODinitiative,supportedbytheWorldBank
andPOD.Theinitiativeisabouttobelaunched.Seehttp://alpha.data.gov.bf/
Lots of organizations, particularly those funding activities related to transparency, are mixing OD
fundingwithfundingdedicatedtoOpenGovernment.
Major players (e.g. The World Bank, DFID) are starting to mainstream OD in all their
activities, and are not able to identify the specific amount dedicated to OD. It is a very similar
process compared to ICT a decade ago, where lots of donors used to have ICT has a specific
program, and have not stopped these programs, and mainstreaming ICT activities across their
differentsectorprograms.
Finally, there seems to be a growing interest from donors to coordinate their action on
specific themes. The format of such coordination varies from jointfunding (e.g. Making All
Voices Count ), to coordination of research (e.g. Transparency & Accountability Initiative or
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Public Health Research Data Forum). These examples, while not exclusively focusing on OD,
areinterestingforatocoordinateactionswithonspecificthemes.
3. Key Actors
This section highlights the key actors of the domain that the study identified. The first part of this
section explores the major actors in terms of size, investment and/or geographic coverage. The
second part aims to identify the leading organizations in the different regions. Finally the last part
highlightsinnovativeactorsthatareusingapproachesthatlookpromisingforthefuture.
3.1. Major Global actors

This section summarizes the list of key actors in the domain of Open Data in Developing
Countries. There are 3 categories of organizations: Donors (IDRC, DFID/UK Aid, Hewlett
Foundation, Open Society Foundations), International Organizations & partnerships (the World
Bank,UNDESA,OGP)andNGOs(ODI,OKFandWebFoundation).
3.1.1. World Bank
The World Bank (TWB) is by far the biggest player in the domain. TWB is active in all developing
regions, is leading a wide variety of sectorial initiatives, and has a holistic approach integrating
mostofitsactivitiesonthesupplysideandthedemandsideofOD.
From a supplyside perspective, TWB provides technical assistance and support to

governments in almost all regions of the World. The following countries have already engaged in
ODactivitieswithTWB:
Africa:BurkinaFaso,Ethiopia,Kenya,Mauritius,Nigeria,Rwanda,Tanzania,Uganda
Latin&CentralAmericaandtheCaribbean:Antigua&Barbuda,Mxico,Per
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http://www.makingallvoicescount.org/
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http://www.transparencyinitiative.org/
EasternEurope:Moldova,RussianFederation.
Asia:Indonesia,Mongolia,Philippines.
The list of past, current and future activities in each country is available online . In most cases, it
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includes an open data readiness assessment (either the formal ODRA Methodology or a
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derivative if it was done prior to the publication), the definition (and sometimes the execution) of
the corresponding action plan. The execution of the action plan includes in most cases the
assistanceinthesetupandlaunchofthenationalopendataportal.
These activities aim at creating a global OD ecosystem at a country level but is sector agnostic
in the approach. TWB also has a series of sectorial initiatives that can complement this national
OGD approach. In some cases these initiatives are developed to support a national initiative. In
other cases they are developed without a national initiative, and sometimes lead to the
development of a national initiative. The study has identified 10 sectorial initiatives that are
summarizedbelowanddetailedintheonlinesheet .
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Global Media Development Program

TWB recognizes that Open Data initiatives around the world are premised on the recognition
that 'opening' key government & development information is a global public good. However,
setting this information free doesn't address the deep capacity gaps had by the target users and
beneficiariesofthis'opened'data.
For Open Data to make a real difference, a key step is to build 'Open Data Literacy of strategic
demandside "mass mobilizers" of information, including and particularly mass media (print,
broadcast,bloggers,socialmedia,andcitizenjournalists/civichackers).
Accordingly, TWB and key partners including the African Media Initiative, Code for Africa, a
series of Knight Fellows, and the International Center for Journalists, designed and launched the
Open Data Literacy program, an intensive, handson, 'learningbydoing' training program and
projectbased learning process focused on enabling mass media to become change agents to
translate Open Data into actionable intelligence for mass public consumption & to inform
decisionmakingatalllevels.
In practice, the aim is to grow Pipelines for capacity development, grassrootsdriven (systemic)
complementary engagement, toward inaugurating selfreinforcing communities of practice. For
example, modular components can be aligned to maximize value both for stakeholder
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See
https://docs.google.com/a/sbc4d.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AusBhfiVWz93dE13OHpNMWRBYjk1UWRu
al9uWW5EaFE#gid=0
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Seehttp://data.worldbank.org/about/opengovernmentdatatoolkit/readinessassessmenttool
20
See
https://docs.google.com/a/sbc4d.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AusBhfiVWz93dE13OHpNMWRBYjk1UWRu
al9uWW5EaFE#gid=0
institutionsandstakeholdersthemselves:
1. Baseline Skills Gaps Survey to get clear idea of landscape , customize content to
maximize grassroots utility, & grow dedicated network (example: Public Finance
Management (PFM) Literacy survey in South Sudan and Budget Data Literacy survey
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inGhana)
2. Awarenessraising & prioritysetting exercises (to answer the for what question.
TWBcallsthese'DataClinics')
3. GateKeeper Roundtables to present the business case for the valueadd of this
process to decisionmakers, e.g. Media Owners and Editors (including encouraging
these decisionmakers to open the space for participants to systematically engage & to
invest their own resources into adopting a stronger dataorientation). For example,
MediaLeadersRoundtables .
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4. Code Fellowships (embedding coders/civic technologists directly into newsrooms, civil
society and government. For example: CodeforAfrica CodeforIndia CodeforPakistan
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andimminently,CodeforLatinAmerica.
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5. Capacity Development PFM Literacy & Budget Data Literacy Bootcamps, e.g. in
South Sudan , Sudan , Bolivia , Ghana, Jordan , Nepal , Malawi , South Africa ,
27 28 29 30 31 32 33
Tanzania ,Tunisia ,Ethiopia ,Uruguay ,etc.
34 35 36 37
6. Linked Acceleration Funding & Competitions for datadriven news content &
tool/platform/service creation (e.g. two $1m News Innovation Challenges in Africa a
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$150KMediaChallengeinLACandmore).
7. Iterative follow up for continuing skills building through target mentorship and
support for existing grassroots communities (e.g. Hacks/Hacker chapters, GDGroups,
ODINodes,OKFNChapters,etc)ineachcountryofengagement.
8. Complementary institutionalization of Skills in Universities through, e.g. elearning /
21
http://southsudan.dbootcamp.org/registrationform/
22
http://ghana.dbootcamp.org/survey/
23
http://africanmediainitiative.org/article/20130717medialeadersroundtableonopendataandthefutureofn
ews
24
http://www.codeforafrica.org/
25
http://www.codeforindia.org/
26
http://www.codeforpakistan.org/
27
http://southsudan.dbootcamp.org/
28
http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/stories/helpingsudansmediafollowmoney
29
http://bolivia.databootcamp.org/
30
http://jordan.dbootcamp.org/
31
http://nepal.databootcamp.org/
32
http://malawi.databootcamp.org/
33
https://sites.google.com/site/databootcampsa/
34
https://sites.google.com/site/databootcamptz/
35
https://sites.google.com/site/databootcamptunisia/
36
http://ethiopia.dbootcamp.org/
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http://uruguay.dbootcamp.org/
38
http://africannewschallenge.org/
MOOCs & embedding World Bank Data Journalism curriculum into University Colleges
ofJournalism/Communications/grassrootstrainingorganizations.

A further approach is to enable grassroots partners to fill key market gaps with free, open
source, and locally managed support architecture such as free parking for scraped data
AfricaOpenData and OpenDataLatinoAmerica , for hackathons, Bootcamps, or any
39 40
datafacingengagementsbyanyandall.
Thetargetcountriesoftheprogramcanbesplitintwocategories:
Those in which an enabling environment is already present and where there is a high
demand for intervention. This includes countries engaged in a national OD initiative,
countries with OGP commitments, and countries with a clear national plan on the
development of OD etc. The program will help enrich other programs of TWB and its
partners.
The second category includes countries where the environment is not entirely positive
and there might be some scepticism around OD, but at the same time there is a demand
for exploration, and evaluation. This includes countries that are about to design plans
relevant to OD or are already engaged in initiatives leading up to OD. Such interventions
havethepotentialtoactascatalystsinafullODinitiative(s).
Open Transport
The work on Open Transport is part of the unit in charge of providing loan for the development
41
oftransportinfrastructures.
Up to now, the process before engaging in the development of infrastructure needs the collection
and analysis of massive data before engaging in the project. This process takes usually one year
and costs around 1M USD because most developing countries do not have reliable data and
capacities to collect and analyse the data needed for decisionmaking. Then usually, after this
phaseoftheprocess,thedatadisappearsorisneitherexploitablenormaintained.
The essence of the program, started in 2011 is to improve this situation and use open data, and
open source software to save time and costs in this process, and ensure that the data is
maintainedandupdated.
Itisbasedaround3principles:
Opendatastandards
Opensourcesoftware
39
http://africaopendata.org/
40
http://www.opendatalatinoamerica.org/home/
41
https://docs.google.com/a/sbc4d.com/file/d/0B5Ot4FPs1rW6SU5OSDQwX0ZiS2s/edit
OpenData
Itfocuseson3areas:
Datacollection
Datastorage,management,sharing,andreuse
Analyse&visualization
Few experiments have been undertaken, e.g. in the Philippines, that includes the development of
tools to support more efficient and economical transport data collection, data storage and
management, data visualization and analysis, and data sharing. The pilot activities also included
organization of a national transport app competition, the objective of which was to support the
development of applications on top of transport data to increase public pressure for maintenance
andaccuracyofthedata.
The pilot activities covered the following types of data: multimodal public transit service
information (e.g., route and stop locations, operating schedules, etc.), real time road network
travelspeeds,androadaccidents.
Thenextstepsinclude:
Support the improvement of open data standards in particular to cover the case of
developing countries (e.g. informal bus network). Current public transit service data
standards are for developed countries transit network, and needs to be adapted to the
conditionofdevelopingcountries.
Crowdsourced repository: capturing in a central place all the data about publicly available
transit maps across countries. For now it is a volunteer work that would benefit from
beingformalizedandproperlyfunded
Complete the toolkit: most of the work has been experimental so far. It would be critical to
complete the toolkit to have an integrated solution that covers the majority of transport
agencies'basictransportplanningandmanagementfunctions
Expandgeographicallyandsupportimplementationindifferentcountries
Supportstartupstodevelopappsontopofopentransportdata
Support countries in the development of their capacities in using ICT tools to do a better
job in data collection & management. This would include online training on new
methodologies&tools
In the future, reusing other sources of data to improve the information collection should be
explored. In particular, lots of data about usage of transports by citizens is based on household
surveysthatveryrarelyhappenindevelopingcountries.
On the other hand, mobile operator information is almost real time information about how people
move. However, mobile operators are not releasing data yet, there is no standard format for that,
it is a huge volume of information and there is not yet algorithm to extract relevant information
etc.Sowhiletherearesomeexperimente.g.inBrazil,thisisfarfrombeingmainstream.
Open Finance
TheOpenFinance activitiesstarted3yearsago.Theprogramhas5tracks.
42
The first track is about opening Bank financial data, giving access to information related to
projectsindifferentregionsandcountries,financialstatementetc.
The second track is a mobile application that mashes up the financial data with other
datasets and provides visualization and easy access to key information. The audience for this
app is multiple: ministries and governments, internal Bank teams, Bank board. Ultimately,
everyone might be interested but the public at large is not easily reached, and even in Asia where
theusageishigh,wecannottellwhoisusingit.
These two tracks are global and do not focus on developing countries in general. They are now
mainstreamedwithinBankactivities.
The three other tracks are more focused on Developing countries, but are more at a
research/pilotingstage.
The operational track is focusing on different dimensions: there are a couple of projects
investigating the role of OD in development. E.g. in India, there is a project exploring how to
use Open Data to define government strategy and monitor this strategy. In Afghanistan, the Bank
is managing a 7 billion USD trust fund, and has released the operations of these funds in OD
and build local capacities on how to manage this. The objectives are to provide information to the
donorsonhowthefundismanaged,butalsosupportthetransitionthatwillcompletein2014.
The second dimension in the operational track is focusing on the demand side. This includes
a survey that has explored the demand for Open Data (awareness, use, etc.) and a few pilots in
KenyaandIndonesiatoexplorehowofflinecommunitiescouldbenefitfromOD.
A new study is ongoing (see the survey and the description ) to find out what is the use of OD
43 44
indevelopingcountries.
The fourth track of the program is data analytics and big data: the objective here is to see how
to mix OD and nonopen data to make predictive analysis. A set of predictive tools are being
developed in particular to help detecting fraud and corruption, or to use OD as a proxy to
42
Seehttps://finances.worldbank.org/
43
https://docs.google.com/a/sbc4d.com/forms/d/1R6EWnq86n68kYMlfV7vs2fuOo1bYnWwXQgO0Z2w83c/vie
wform
44
http://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/opendatamakinggoodpromiseturboboosteddevelopmentoperational
useopendata
measurepoverty
The final track is related to the business sector and the commercial use of OD. The Bank
together with IFC and with the support of the POD is setting up an Open Data Fund to support
startups in developing countries to develop businesses around OD. For now countries where
the tech communities are more developed and where the government is strongly pushing for OD
aretargeted.ThisincludesIndia,BrazilandafewcountriesinAfrica.
In term of next steps, the major focus of the program is to continue building awareness among
entrepreneurs and client countries about the opportunities that OD brings. The objectives is to
mainstream the work that has been piloted, and ensure that all future projects of the Bank raise
itseffectivenessbyintegratinganODmoduleand/orexploitingtheopportunitiesprovidedbyOD.
Fiscal Transparency and Accountability

The Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Public sector (PRMPS) anchor is
undertaking a number of knowledge management activities in relation to budget/fiscal
transparency and participation in FY14, including 1) conducting a stocktake of the Public Sector
Governance group's work on fiscal transparency in the public financial management arena, 2)
collaborating with WBI on strengthening legislature oversight in its role in the budget process, 3)
facilitating and managing the Bank's Fiscal Transparency, Participation and Accountability
Community of Practice, and 4) supporting Bank wide efforts and global partnerships such as
BOOSTandtheGlobalInitiativeforFiscalTransparency(GIFT).
1. Stocktake of the Bank's work on fiscal transparency in public financial management

(PFM)
PRMPS is working on a stocktaking exercise to understand the Bank's approach to fiscal
transparency within PFM in its lending projects. It will describe the nature, main trends, and
patternsoftheBank'sworkonfiscaltransparency.
2.Strengtheninglegislatureoversightofthebudget
PRMPS is collaborating with WBI on how to engage with parliaments. Parliaments are
institutions that authorize the budget and hold the government to account, and exercise oversight
and demand accountability, At the same time, parliaments are central to efforts aimed at opening
the budget process, as a user of government information, but also as a provider of information to
citizens, and a bridge between executive and citizens. However, engagement with
parliamentarians has been a limited part of the Banks work on governance. The focus is to learn
from Bank's experience and capture good global practices. Key outputs include: 45 case
studies in South Korea, Niger, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and a country in the Latin America and
Caribbeanregions,alearningcontent,anelearningcourse,andaguidancenote.
3.FiscalTransparency,ParticipationandAccountabilityCommunityofPractice
The purpose of the Fiscal Transparency CoP is to connect staff across the Bank and outside
practitioners engaged in the various dimensions of fiscal transparency, public participation and
accountability. With the growing importance of this area over the past decade, different parts of
the Bank are working on this issue and clients are asking for assistance. Therefore, we felt the
need to create a space where people will be able to find, generate, and exchange ideas and
lessons learned from practices (especially at the country level). The CoP aims to bring in both
thesupplyanddemandsideengagementswhenthinkingaboutfiscaltransparency.
4.SupporttoBankwideeffortsandglobalpartnerships
1. PRMPS supports BOOST in expanding access and use of open budget data, particularly
with the release of the BOOST Open Budgets Portal . See details of BOOST in the next
45
section.
2. PRMPS and WBI are engaged with GIFT as one of the core leading members. GIFT is a
multistakeholder action network working to advance and institutionalize global norms
and significant, continuous improvements on fiscal transparency, participation, and
accountabilityincountriesaroundtheworld.
It seeks to accelerate achievement of these goals by bringing together a diverse group of

international and national partners including Brazil, the Philippines, IMF, WB, International Budget
Partnership, Hewlett Foundation, and civil society. PRMPS is also providing support to GIFT
through the Development Grant Facility (DGF) which is the Bank's financing mechanism to
encourageinnovativeglobalpartnership.
GIFT'sworkfor2014includesthefollowing:
1. AdvanceUNConventiononfiscaltransparency,participationandaccountability
2. Further the coherence and comprehensiveness of the global architecture of fiscal
opennessnormstoaddresscurrentgapsandinconsistenciesbutalsoopportunities
3. Advance research and learning of impacts, incentives, practical approaches and
innovationsinfiscalopenness
4. Coordinate the Open Government PartnershipGIFT Fiscal Openness Working Group to
share experience among OGP member countries and to encourage more ambitious
country commitments. GIFT will also encourage nonOGP members to commit and
improvefiscalopenness.
5. Harnessnewtechnologyandopendata
Activitiesinthepipelinearethefollowing:
1. BBLseries:
ParliamentaryBudgetOffices
Innovationstoexpandaccessanduseofopenbudgetdata
Taxtransparency
45
http://wbi.worldbank.org/boost/
Subnationalexperiences(Cambodiaandothers)
Publicfinanceandaccountabilityproject(DRCandothers)
Howtonoteonsocialaccountabilityinextractiveindustryoperations
2. LessonsfromthePEMPALeventonfiscaltransparencyandaccountabilityinRussia
3. Elearningmoduleonstrengtheninglegislativeoversightofthebudget
4. Training on introducing social accountability in fiscal transparency components of
projects
5. Trainingonfiscaltransparencyandmonitoringinextractiveindustriesoperations
Open Budget (BOOST)
The BOOST program is a Bankwide collaborative effort to increase the accessibility and use
46
of expenditure data to serve as a platform to promote enhanced expenditure analysis, support
fiscaltransparencyeffortsandanenablingenvironmentforopenbudgets.
The appeal of the BOOST approach which is anchored around rigorous principles of data
quality including comprehensiveness, reliability, granularity, and integrity is that it provides
userfriendly platforms where all expenditure data can be easily accessed (often in conjunction
with nonfinancial indicators) and used by researchers, government officials and ordinary citizens
to examine trends in allocations of public resources, analyse potential sources of inefficiencies,
andbecomebetterinformedabouthowgovernmentsfinancethedeliveryofpublicservices.
Currently, the initiative has been rolled over in roughly 50 countries across all regions, ranging
from narrow support to Public expenditure reviews, to wider programs of transparency and
capacitybuildingintheuseoftheexpendituredata.
Ongoing engagements include among others Paraguay, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Togo,
Brazil (states), Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Mauritius, Seychelles, Niger, Burundi, Guinea, Sierra
Leone, Ethiopia, Ghana, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Yemen, Mauritania, Namibia, Solomon, Kiribati,
Moldova, Poland, Armenia, Serbia, Kosovo. Tajikistan, Kyrgyz, Haiti and El Salvador. 14
countries are currently featured in the Open Budgets Portal with more expected to join in
47
comingmonths.
Open Private Sector
The objective of this new initiative is to support worldwide companies to embrace and take
advantage of the Open Data trend to become more accountable and transparent in terms of
governance,socialresponsibility,environmentalimpactetc.
The core principle of the initiative is to demonstrate to the companies all over the World that
engaging in the process of opening their data will have a positive economic impact for them, and
helpthemincreasingtheirbenefits.
The strategy of the initiative is structured around 5 elements that answer major challenges of
46
http://wbi.worldbank.org/boost/country
47
http://wbi.worldbank.org/boost/
entrepreneursandprovideincentivesforcompaniestoengageintheprocess.
An Open Company Data Index realized with OpenCorporates that exploits all open
48 49
company registries provided by government and ease the duediligence and
competitiveness analysis. This helps companies reduce their risk when working with
others
An Open Supply Chain initiative helping companies from top to bottom (e.g. lowest
producer level) to manage their supply chains, and increase transparency, traceability,
certification,identificationofrelevantpartnersetc.
A Beneficiary Feedback App Store to support links, feedbacks, and resolution of
50
conflicts between the different actors of the supply chain, the customers etc. This store
offers free tools to help companies, even the small ones that do not have access yet to
suchproducts
An Open Contracting initiative with Govini to help companies and governments
51
accessing contracts, bid, announcements globally at a national level from multiple
sources.
A platform to leverage publicprivate dialogues and cooperation between companies and
governments
From an OD perspective, the initiative plans to work on both supplyside and demandside. On
the supplyside, the initiative will work with government to release information about company
registries, contract data (at national/federal level but also at the subnational/state/city level). It
will also work on the legal aspect such as e.g. CSRrelated law, corporate requirements of
informationdisclosure,gov.requirementsofinformationdisclosure(e.g.underFoIactoralike).
On the demandside, it will provide tools, indexes, and central registries for companies to exploit
theinformation.
In terms of countries, few countries have already invested in pieces of the overall framework
(e.g. publicprivate dialog platform, open contracting), but a few have already expressed interest
in the big picture and the global approach. There are demands of assistance through the OGP
mechanismfrome.g.Philippines,India,Mexico,NepalandRussia.
Open Climate
The Open Climate Initiative started in 2011 and has the objective to use open data in the
52
climate area to be able to predict in a more accurate way the global change or specific disasters
thatmayaffecttheWorldingeneral,andthedevelopingworldinparticular.
48
http://registries.opencorporates.com/
49
https://opencorporates.com/
50
http://www.thefeedbackstore.com/
51
http://www.govini.com/
52
http://data.worldbank.org/news/newdataandtoolsonclimatechange
The core of the initiative is structured around the Climate Change Knowledge Portal for
53
developmentpractitionersandpolicymakers.
The strategy is to gather and give access to as much datasets as possible related to climate
change indicators (also known as Open Climate Data). The datasets are available globally at
the international level, but are also grouped with a set of complementary indicators in a
countryspecific page to help designing specific plan to address the change at the country level
(see the section Climate Country Adaptation Profiles on the portal that references 50+
54
countriesprofiles).
Around the data, a set of tools have been developed, and innovation through app competition
have been organized (see e.g. App for Climate competition ) to help tracking changes and
55
adaptation.
Twootherinitiativesarepartofthistheme:
The Open Data for Resilience initiative described below in this document that
focusesondisasteranddisasterrisksmanagement
The Climate Investment Funds (CIF). The CIF, while not specifically focused on Open
56
Data, is a facility for countries to access to funds to tackle challenges and mitigate risks
relatedtoclimatechange.
Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI)

The objective of OpenDRI is to support countries in their management of disaster and climate
57
risks,throughbetterunderstanding,quantificationandcommunicationoftherisks.
The essence of OpenDRI involves working with government to release existing datasets related
to the disaster risks, such as geospatial maps on exposure and natural hazards. The program
then works with communities to create, improve and exploit these datasets (updating maps,
capturingcommunityknowledge,etc.).
A successful intervention where governments are sharing key data related to risks, and are
engaging volunteers, government officials and universities to gather and share information that
are essential understanding disaster and climate risks and therefore the management of these
53
http://sdwebx.worldbank.org/climateportal/index.cfm?page=why_climate_change
54
http://sdwebx.worldbank.org/climateportalb/home.cfm?page=country_profile
55
https://wbchallenge.imaginatik.com/wbchallengecomp.nsf/x/competition?open&eid=20111116852578790059
55D51068264
56
https://www.climateinvestmentfunds.org/cif/
57
https://www.gfdrr.org/node/28076
risks. This should ultimately result in fewer lives lost, less economic damage and a faster
recoveryintheeventofanaturalhazardoccurring.
Understanding disaster risks requires datasets from all government ministries transport, health,
finance, education, disaster management, planning etc and so the initiative works across
sectorsbutfocused100%ongeospatialdatarequiredtounderstandrisk.
In some countries, this type of approach has led to a greater interest in Open Data for example
in Sri Lanka, which is now designing a full national Spatial Data Infrastructure. The initiative can
work as a standalone initiative or together with others and is also starting to use the Open Data
ReadinessAssessmentinprojects.
For future work, the initiative is responding to more requests for the OpenDRI approach in
countries and also continuing to support countries in which the program has already been
deployedin.
Internal software developers are also improving the geonode and InaSAFE tools as part of a
global opensource developer community that is growing around these tools. Finally, the initiative
continues to see how linkages with approaches such as OSM, remote sensing etc. can be
improved.
Open Aid Partnership
The Open Aid Partnership (OAP) started 2.5 years ago and has the broad objective to map all
58
the development projects at the subnational level. The plan is to support this objective through
the development of a platform consisting of methodology and tools to provide information about
Aiddata.
The work has started at a country level, in four countries (Nepal, Bolivia, Malawi and Kenya). The
principle of the work at a country level is to help governments to publish aid data out of their own
AID mapping system. Most countries have some kinds of system managed by the ministry of
financeorministryofplanningthatmapsaidsfromdonorwithprojectsandplaces.
The role of OAP is to support government to clean, curate, geocode and publish the data they
have on Aid projects and donors. OAP also helps collect more data, in particular geographically
disaggregated data (financial data, contract data, and when possible result data). This is
currentlybeingpilotedinNepal.
OAPnotonlyworksonthesupplysidebutalsoonthedemandside.
On the demand side, 2 major audiences are targeted: the first one is CSOs and
media/journalistsandthesecondoneisgovernmentofficialsanddonors.
For the first category, bootcamps and workshop are organized to build capacity on how to exploit
58
http://wbi.worldbank.org/wbi/openaidpartnership
the Aid data, how to visualize and mashup with other sources, how to write evidencebased
articleonhowaidisusedetc.
For the second category, the approach is to help governments to use this information for better
planning for use of Aid money, particularly targeting specific geography that is likely to be
impacted. The aim also is to help governments manage their donor community, collaborate with
themondesigninginterventionsetc.ThispartofthemethodologyisbeingtestedinMalawi
OAP has now established a complete methodology to apply in countries. This includes activities,
toolsandprocessesworkingbothonthedemandandsupplyside.
In some countries like Bolivia the whole package is applied, while in some others only some
parts. OAP has experience working in countries with or without OD initiatives. In some countries,
e.g. Bolivia, the work started with OAP, but it is helping opening the OD agenda. Now the
government is interested in expanding it to other financial domains and not just Aid. The project
will therefore expand to other areas of financial management and Bolivia will participate in
BOOST. In long term, this will lead to a larger buyin of OD, potentially leading to a national OD
initiative.
The selection of countries was done carefully based on the importance of Aid, the donor
fragmentation and the interest of the countries. The work is in the process of being expanded to
fragile states, in particular Afghanistan and Sierra Leone, where the situation is more difficult.
OAPisalsoactiveinIATIandinparticularinthegeocodingstandardpartofit.
Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)
While the Bank has been involved in EITI and mining, oil & gas initiatives since more than 10
59
years,theworkonopendatahasstartedabout2yearsagoandisstillinitsearlyphase.
So far, only pilot activities have been organized. This includes a competition on application
development based on datasets provided by EITI initiatives, and a data bootcamp in Nigeria that
involved mostly journalists and media to train them on how to access, understand and use all the
datarelatedtoextractiveindustries.
WBI also created some country extractives data maps, scraping datasets from a range of public
sources and creating a platform where you can layer different data points related to the sector.
Theseprovedpopularandwerehandedovertolocalinstitutionstomaintain.
The major challenge here is the availability of massive sets of information on the sources, such
as increasingly on the contracts between the different stakeholders, but the lack of standards in
how to represent this information leads to lack of interoperability, major challenges to mash
different sources of information or to compare between countries. Standards are needed to
represent information about the activities of the extractive industry and the sources, but are also
59
http://eiti.org/
neededforthecontractpublication.
There is an ongoing initiative as part of the open contracting initiative to develop a specific
extensionoftheopencontractingdatastandardfortheextractiveindustry.
The critical next steps are to define a global framework that will tell a good story for countries.
Thisneedstoinclude:
Datastandardsforstoring,publishingandcomparingdataabouttheindustry
Datastandardsforcontractsintheextractiveindustry
A methodology for countries that will identify the type of datasets that are necessary to
release, the type of applications and the potential impact of the release and reuse of
thesedatasetsandthestructureanddevelopmentofanODecosystem.
In order to address these issues a new work program on good governance and extractive
industry and a new trust fund proposal are being developed. In the next 6 months, it will be clear
iftheWorldBankwillengagefurtheranddeeperintheimplementationoftheframeworkornot.
In few words, there is a general agreement that OD has a lot of potential to support good
governance in the extractive industry, EITI international board is aware and convinced about this
potential too, but there is a need to define now practical methodology, data standards and
implement them in different countries. In term of countries, Nigeria and Ghana have expressed
stronginterestinthis.
Other Initiatives
Apart from these 10 sectorial initiatives, two other should also be mentioned as they related to
OD:
Asia Knowledge and Innovation Lab (AKIL): The Asia Knowledge Innovation Lab (AKIL)
60
is incubated from the PSF PNPM Support Facility, AusAid and the World Bank in
Indonesia. AKILs mission is to trial and support the innovative use of information and
communication technologies (ICTs) to improve the effectiveness of programs targeting
Indonesias increasingly connected poor. In the context of Open Data AKIL aims to
improve accessibility of development data owned by government and donors, and
enhanced publishing in open data formats for broad use and accountability. AKIL
recently sponsored 2 workshops in Bandung and Jakarta with focus on engaging
academic institutions and ICT communities. The objective was to educate participants on
the current state of Open Data for Development in the country, clarify concepts, highlight
bestpracticesandcasestudiesandprovideaforumfordiscussionandideasharing.
Countrylevel Open Data Trainings: these initiatives aim at developing capacities at the
local level as well as promote the reuse and exploitation of TWB internal data published
onTWBopendataportal .
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60
http://akilnews.wordpress.com/about/
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http://data.worldbank.org/
3.1.2. OGP
The OGP Steering Committee has decided to pilot several thematic working groups with the goal
of supporting OGP governments in implementing their commitments and developing more
ambitiousandinnovativeactionplans.
Given the popularity of open data commitments across the Partnership, one of these thematic
groups is focusing on supporting OGP governments in implementing their open data
commitmentsanddevelopingmoreambitiousactionplans.
The OGP Open Data Working Group is being driven by the Government of Canada and the
WorldWideWebFoundation,anditsobjectivesinclude:
Providing a forum for peertopeer sharing and learning on open data policies and
initiativesamongmembers.
Offer participants access to experiences, best practices, tools, and technical expertise
onopendataissues.
Helpidentifytechnicalassistanceandpartnershipopportunitiesonopendata.
IncreaseawarenessofopengovernmentdataissuesacrosstheOGP.
To achieve these objectives the Working Group will conduct its activities within four main work
streams:
Prepare a common set of open data principles to support the development and
implementationofstrongeropendatacommitmentsbyOGPmembers.
Measuring the impact of open data going beyond purely economic gains and extending to
socialandpoliticalimprovementsforabetterunderstandingofitsfullpotential.
Promote the use of open data standards to increase the interoperability of open data
activitiesacrossmultiplejurisdictions.
Build capacity expanding the reuse of resources, tools, solutions, models, and lessons
learnedtosupportmemberstoexpandandimprovegovernmentopendataactivities.
The current work plan , although quite mature, is still a workinprogress subject to change, as
62
the Steering Committee is currently gathering feedback from working group members. Feedback
received so far is focusing mainly on identifying overlaps and potential areas for collaboration
and exchange across the different working groups at the OGP, as well as on ensuring good
coverageofgovernance,socialandeconomicdimensions.
A revised version of this draft plan with more specific activities and timelines is expected by
midAprilaftertheSteeringCommitteemeetingearlierinthemonth.
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http://www.opengovpartnership.org/sites/default/files/attachments/ODWG%20Draft%20Workplan.pdf
The group will work mainly in a distributed by means of virtual meetings and teleconferences, but
an annual facetoface meeting is also foreseen, coallocated this year with the third International
Open Data Conference in Ottawa, organized by the Government of Canada, in cooperation with
IDRC,theWorldBankandotherprivateandpublicpartners.
The resources available to support working group activities would be used to support travel
expenses of Steering Committee members to regional meetings provide translations of key
documents and deliverables into other languages and setup an online platform for collaboration
anddocumentsharing.
3.1.3. UNDESA
UNDESA is relatively new in the domain. Past work includes the development of OGD for citizen
engagementguidelines .Theimplementationguideisunderdevelopment.
63
The role of UNDESA is to support government in defining their policy framework, and coordinate
actions with other UN agencies. UNDESA makes intervention based on government demand,
butalsousuallyworkwithCSOsandbusinessesatthecountrylevel.
During Spring 2014, a new project will be approved that will focus on 2 regions, Latin America
and Asia, and 4 countries (the selection of countries is not confirmed yet): Nepal, Bangladesh,
Uruguay,Panama.
The objective is to work with corresponding UN agencies (UN ECLAC/UN ESCAP) and support
government in their OD roadmap. The selected countries were chosen based on a set of criteria
such as internet connectivity, infrastructure or their demographic profile. The idea is to select
countries that are advanced, but also countries that are less developed on the OD front but may
benefitmorefromtheintervention.
The roadmap for country intervention will be to run an assessment first, identify needs and
bottlenecks, identify local opportunities, identify players locally and build capacities of the different
actors. The objective is to cover both the local needs as well as more global concerns such as
transparency or privacy. The objective is also to have the countries drive their own agenda at the
endoftheintervention.
The project includes the organization of regional conferences to leverage knowledge sharing,
and to help other countries to build their own agenda. In terms of methodology, UNDESA will use
its internal methodology as well as other methodologies such as the World Bank Open Data
Toolkit, and merge them to have the best set of guidelines. UNDESA plans also to link with key
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http://workspace.unpan.org/sites/Internet/Documents/Guidenlines%20on%20OGDCE%20May17%202013.p
df
actorssuchastheWorldBankinthetargetcountries.
3.1.4. DFID/UKAid
Open Data is a strategic focus of the UK government and multiple sectors and activities are
investinginOD,evenifthisisarelativelyrecenttrendandODisstillatitsearlydaysatDFID.
Current principal focus is IATI and Transparency (EITI, Development Tracker etc.). However,
DFID is investigating the opportunity to contribute to the call for a data revolution associated with
the post2015 MDGs. If this goes ahead, this will be a major stepchange aiming at putting data
(includingOD)attheheartofmanyactivitiesincludingresearchandstatistics.
DFID has also established a Digital Advisory Panel, one of whose responsibilities will be advising
DFID on getting their own house in order with respect to data and management information
systems.
OD interest is currently expanding and covering many sectors and is also supporting different
countries public sector, either directly or through World Bank Trust Funds. DFID supports a set
ofinitiativeswithinaseriesofthemesthatexplorestheroleofOD:
Open Data: In this theme, DFID supports different projects and initiatives such as
Making All Voices Count, Voices of the Hungry, , Influencing development of IATI
standards, Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) , Land
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Transparency, Extractives transparency, Transparency of humanitarian aid, Open
Government Partnership (OGP), Aid Transparency Impact Fund, Information and
NetworksinAsiaandsubSaharanAfrica(INASSA).
Building capacity of national statistical systems: DFID explores the development of
capacitiestomonitoragainstnewmetrics,includingdisaggregation
Measuring progress towards post2015 goals and targets: Work includes exploring
metricsforanewframeworkandabighouseholdsurveypushforbetterbaselinedata.
Global Partnership for Development Data: DFID is exploring opportunities to contribute to
aNewGlobalPartnershipandcorrespondingmechanism,fundingetc.
Technology Revolution (opportunities from big data, mobile telephony and crowdsourcing
etc.). In this theme DFID support different projects and initiatives such as funding for
TFSCB to support innovative approaches to data collection, Mobile/digital techs within
climate and energy and agricultural programs, Trade Transparency Project, Alliance for
Affordable Internet, the Web Index, Amplify (women and girls safety in urban areas),
GlobalOpenKnowledgeHub(incorporatesBRIDGEgenderdata)
DFID has also a complete program on Improving the UKs Own Data related to UK open data
initiative.
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http://godan.info/
3.1.5. IDRC
IDRC has been supporting OD for development since more than four years. IDRC interests
focusontwospecificareas:
Research of evidences of impact of OD in as many sectors and contexts as possible

(health, education, poverty alleviation, transparency, tourism, smart cities, environment,
natural resource management, etc.). These dimensions can be split in 3 areas:
transparency,GovernmentEfficiency,andEconomicDevelopment.
Knowledgesharingbothattheregionalandinternationallevel.
In the past, IDRC started to invest in the area of OD4D in 2010 and focused first on Latin
America and the Caribbean region. In the Caribbean, IDRC supported the creation and launch of
the Caribbean Open Institute as a regional hub on Open Data. In Latin America, it funded the
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project OD4D , driven by UN ECLAC and W3CBrazil that had the goal to coordinate
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development of OD4D in the region. This included the organization of a regional conference in
UruguayinJune2013.Thefirstphaseofthisprojectisnowover.
OD4D has further evolved into ILDA, the just launched Open Data LatinAmerica Initiative, with
fourmainobjectives:
1. Governmentengagement
2. Awarenessraising
3. Researchandpoliciesand
4. Datademandactivation.
This new project will be more oriented to the civil society and it is expected to consist of three
mainphasescombiningresearchandimplementationonfourprioritytopics:
1. GovernmentTransparency
2. UrbanDevelopment
3. EducationandHealthPublicServicesand
4. AgricultureandEnvironment.
Implementation will be in the form of several pilot projects for the different topics (two or three
countries for each of them) supported by a series of microgrants. A final phase will be focused
onconclusions,feedbackandcontinuationpossibilities.
Since 2012, IDRC has also funded the Open Data Research Network (ODDC) to support
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researchers in Africa and Asia to collect evidences of impact of OD in developing countries. The
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http://caribbeanopeninstitute.org/
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http://www.od4d.org/en/
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http://www.opendataresearch.org/
researchisfinishingandtheresultsareexpectedinthenextfewmonths.
The current focus of IDRC is to support and leverage OGP work, and specifically the Open Data
Working Group (ODWG). The Government of Canada is cochair of ODWG, and the objective is
to support countries, in particular developing countries, to improve their open data commitments
to OGP. There is a steering committee that includes countries (e.g. Philippines, Mexico, and
Argentina)andcivilsocietyorganizations(e.g.HivosorSunlightfoundation).
The OD4D strategy of IDRC is still to expand regional and international knowledge sharing. The
OD4D brand, originally developed for the Latin America project, will be expanded to become a
worldwide initiative, which will support regional elements, and work under the umbrella of
ODWG.
In Latin America, this will lead to a second phase of the previous project (ILDA) that will involve
UN ECLAC, OAS (Organization of American States) and Foundation Avina. It will strengthen the
LA regional lab for sharing knowledge on how to leverage impact, how to reach underprivileged
populationandhavethembenefitingfromtheODprocessetc.
A new regional conference will be organized in 2014 in Mexico and will be supported through this
project.
In the same way, IDRC will support the development of a regional lab in Asia (in Indonesia) and
islookingforthesameinAfrica.
At the international level, IDRC will cohost the 3rd international conference on Open Data at the
endof2014orearly2015,andwillensurethatOD4Disoneofthemajoragendaitem.
IDRCs objective is to participate in the development of a common agenda globally on OD4D and
avoidworkinginisolation.

3.1.6. William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (WFHF) is heavily involved in different dimensions of
OpenData.Asanorganization,itispublishingitsdataonIATIregistry.
Then OD is part of multiple programs and components. One area of concentration is research
transparency. WFHF is piloting requiring their grantees to prospectively register impact
evaluationsdirectlyfundedbyWFHF.
It is also piloting an effort to require grantees to use Creative Commons licenses for their
publicationsfundedbyWFHF.
In this area, WFHF is member of the Public Health Research Data Forum led by Wellcome
Trust. This partnership gathers major donors in the health sector and promotes research
transparencyonhealth,includingopenaccesstopublication,andpublicationofdata.
One of the Hewlett grantees taking an active role in sharing data is the INDEPTH Network, based
in Accra. The network is made up of 48 member centres running health and demographic
surveillance systems. 10 of them are now sharing their core demographic data online through
INDEPTHs iShare platform. INDEPTHs experience has provided them with lots of insights on
challengesaswellasbenefitsofsuchsharing.
On the government side, WFHF is supporting civil society organizations and nonprofit that
advocate for opening of government data in different countries. For example WFHF supports the
InternationalBudgetPartnershipandtheOpenKnowledgeFoundation.
WFHF also supports the Open Government Partnership, particularly on how civil society
advocates can easily access machinereadable, raw data sets that the government makes
available. This involves not only following up on those OGP commitments related to open data
(the majority of OGP commitments across all members), but also working to support civil
societysabilitytomakeuseofthedataforaccountabilityrelatedadvocacy.
WFHF also supports civil society organizations to use OD in their operations for more efficiency
and impact. WFHF has just started a new component called "Evidenceinformed policy making"
and the strategy that is being developed will surely integrate an OD component, but the details
needtobesortedout,andgapswithotheractivitiesidentifiedtoavoidoverlapping.
One area of that WFHF is interested in exploring more is interoperability of data across sectors.
Many different fields are talking about standards for OD such as open government data and
research data, but these communities are not aware of the conversations happening in the
others. There may be some benefits of connecting these conversations more and some benefits
toensuringdataareinteroperableacrossfields.
In terms of investments, it is very difficult to identify the amount of grants that is dedicated to OD.
There isn't a dedicated line for OD but multiple OD components across grants and programs.
Moreover, WFHF is also providing general operating support grants to a lot of organizations, and
itisnotpossibletoseeinthosetheamountdedicatedtoOD.
3.1.7. Open Society Foundations
Open Data is an issue that a number of thematic and regional programs at The Open Society
Foundations (OSF) touches upon. For the purposes of this document, we spoke with one
thematic program, the Information Program that has been involved with open data for several
years. Other programs that specifically may touch upon open data issues include the Think
Tank Fund, the Human Rights Initiative and the Fiscal Governance Program regional programs
including the Africa Regional Office, the South East Asia Program, and the Latin America
Programhavealsotrackedthisissueintheirregions.
The Information Programs focus is on the use of data to support evidencebased advocacy,
journalism, and public discourse by civic actors, advocates, and citizens as opposed to the
release of data through nationallevel open data initiatives or portals. The aim is to help local
organizations taking advantage of OD to support citizen engagements, advocacy goals and
policy change. Other programs, such as the Human Rights Initiative, have also supported
organizations promoting the opening of data at the local level in various domains such as e.g.
education(checkmyschool ),healthorassetdisclosures.
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In terms of activities at the global level, the Information Program was an early mover in exploring
the potential role of OD in developing countries. Through the Transparency & Accountability
Initiative (TAI), the Information Program funded, together with Omidyar Network, Ghana and Chile
OD Readiness Assessment in 2010 to investigate how donors in TAI could integrate OD
componentsintheirportfolioofactions.
Around the same time, the Information Program also commissioned studies to understand the
intersection and possible synergies between OD and freedom of information movement. More
recently (2012), the program explored the opportunity to launch work around standards to
evaluatenationallevelopendataprojects.
The analysis of OGP commitments made by different countries led to the conclusion that it is
easy to make a commitment, and it is easy for a given country to be transparent on areas they
choose, through the building of a national data portal. However, this does not necessarily lead to
greater accountability. The critical point is the development of an ecosystem of accountability in
whichhighvaluedataisusedeffectivelybycivicactors.
In order to address this set of challenges, and the definition of a global framework, the
Information Program supported the exploratory stage of the Global Open Data Initiative . Taking
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forward this work, initiated by a coalition of civil society organizations working in the open data
space,maybeafruitfulareaforthePODtoexplore.
OthertopicstheInformationProgramisexploringthatrelatetoopendataworkinclude:
Civil liberties: the intersection between a citizens right to privacy and open data, including
the ways in which governments will need to balance between anonymization and
completedatarelease.
Data standards and usercentric design: how the growing number of data standards
being developed may connect with ontheground advocates, journalists, and citizens
useofdata.
3.1.8. Omidyar Network
Omidyar Network (ON) is one of the major actors in the domain since 2009. Concerning its
international policy and advocacy activities related to OD, ON structures its strategy around 3
topics:
FiscalTransparency
GeneralOpenDataactivities
Privacy
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http://www.checkmyschool.org/
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http://globalopendatainitiative.org/
Concerning fiscal transparency, ON is investing in 2 dimensions related to the theme of follow

themoney.
The first one focuses on supporting CSOs and media to use transparency and accountability
tools and approaches to track revenues due to the state (in various industries such as e.g.
extractive companies) as well as public expenditures. ON also supports advocacy organizations
thatpromoteforgreateraccesstoinformationinthatarea.
The second dimension that is critical for ON is open data standards to ensure greater
accessibility and interoperability of data and to leverage comparison and mashup between
different organizations and geographies. ON supports the development of different technical
opendatastandardsrelatedtofiscaltransparency,includinge.g.theworkonopencontracting.
Concerning general OD activities, ON objective is to understand how to benchmark the

numerousOGDinitiativesflourishingallovertheworld.
Key investigations include research on how to measure success of an OGD initiative and hold
governments accountable for their commitments, or collection evidences of successes and
failures.ONactionplanisstructuredaround4components:
1. IncreasinggloballythequalityandquantityofdatareleasedasOD,
2. Ensuringthatprivacyrightsofcitizensareprotected
3. Supportingreuseofdata,anddevelopmentofecosystem(demandsideactivities)
4. CollectingevidencesandmeasuringimpactofOD
On these different components, ON provides funding to most of the global actors of the domain
including e.g. ODI, OKF, Sunlight foundation, World Wide Web Foundation, Code for America,
etc.
Concerning privacy and surveillance, ON is in early stage of investigating where to place its
efforts. E.g. including personal privacy protection and ensuring that OD initiative are respectful of
citizenrightstoprivacy
In terms of international platforms and partnerships, ON is active in the OGP, the G7 and G20
fora. ON is also involved in the post2015 MDG discussions. Finally ON is an active member of
the Transparency and Accountability Initiative (TAI) and the Making All Voices Count initiative
(MAVC).
In terms of effort, the fiscal transparency area represents 50% of the activities, the OD area
3540%,andtheprivacyandsurveillancecomponent1015%.
Apart from the international work, there are also a series of activities related OD driven at the
regional level, e.g. civic forprofit innovation, or support of the development of OD platforms at
the subcountries/cities level. In total, the average investment in government transparency (with
afocusontechnologyandopendata)annuallyisaround2535MUSD.
In terms of geographical focus (LMICs only), ON focused on United States, Brazil and Mexico in
Latin/Central America, Kenya, SouthAfrica, Nigeria and Egypt in Africa, India, Pakistan,
IndonesiaandthePhilippinesinAsia,andUK,Ukraine,PolandandTurkeyinEurope.
3.1.9. Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF)

The Open Knowledge Foundation is a nonprofit organisation founded in 2004 and dedicated to
promoting open data and open content in all their forms including government data, publicly
funded research and public domain cultural content. Since its creation, OKF has been working
all over the World, and with public sectors and government as well as civil society organizations.
AlltheinterventionsofOKFareneedsdriven.
Apart from POD, OKF has a set of initiatives that are executed in developing countries, or cover
developing countries. OKF has also a set of local initiatives and local chapters in different
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countriesindifferentdevelopinganddevelopedregions.
KeyOKFinitiativesare:
The Open Data Index : The Open Data Index assesses the state of open government
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dataroundtheworld.
The Global Open Data Initiative (GODI): GODI is an initiative led by civil society
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organizations to share principles and resources for governments and societies on how to
best harness the opportunities created by opening government data. It is intended to
provide a roadmap of policies and institutions that countries can use to build meaningful
newopendatareformsandinitiatives,informedbythesuccessesofothers.
General Open Data training programs that are delivered to governments, CSOs, and
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others.
School of Data : School of Data works to empower civil society organizations,
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journalistsandcitizenswiththeskillstheyneedtousedataeffectively
Datatools:OKFdevelopsandofferawiderangeoffreeandopensourcetools:
CKAN : CKAN is the world leading free and open source data portal platform
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usedbymanygovernmentsaroundtheWorldaswellasCSOsandothers .
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Frictionless Data : frictionless data is a set of lightweight standards and tooling to
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https://okfn.org/network/
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https://index.okfn.org/
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https://okfn.org/training/
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http://schoolofdata.org/
75
http://ckan.org/
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http://ckan.org/instances/
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http://data.okfn.org/
makeiteffortlesstoshareandgetdata
DataProtocols :asetofLightweightStandardsandPatternsfor(Open)Data
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OKF Labs : OKF Labs is an open community developing tools and insights using
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opendata,opencontentandopencode
OpenSpending : OpenSpending is a project supported by OKF and whose aim is to
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map the money worldwide that is, to track and analyse public financial information
globally.
International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI): OKF is the Lead developer of the IATI
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registry anddevelopedIATIDataStore
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Intermsofnextsteps,OKFwillfocusondeepeningexistingactivities:
Expanding Open Data Index to have a greater coverage, and develop the concept of local
opendatacensuses .
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ExpandingInternationalNetworkofLocalGroupsandWorkinggroups
Expanding School of Data and the number of training in data use generally and open data
inparticularforgovernmentsandCSOs.
ExpandingstakeholderparticipationsanduseofCKANandOpenSpending
3.1.10. Open Data Institute (ODI)

ODI was founded in 2012 by Sir Tim BernersLee and Sir Nigel Shadbolt, global pioneers in OD
andinparticularinthedesignandimplementationoftheUKnationalODinitiative.
The core mission of ODI is to create knowledge for everyone. They do this by creating an
enabling environment for creating impact through the use and exploitation of OD. This enabling
environmentincludes:
The development of technical and social standards to make use of OD (publication,

reuse, etc.) easier. Open Data Certificates is a shining example of how an instrument
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cancombinetechnicalandsocialdimensionstomeasurethestateofOD.
The positioning of ODI as a catalyst, and not necessarily a direct implementer of OD
actions.
The measurement of impact on three dimensions: economic value, social value and
environmentalvalue.
ODI views OD as tool for solving challenges and reaching a targeted impact and not as a goal by
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http://dataprotocols.org/
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http://okfnlabs.org/
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https://openspending.org/
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http://www.aidtransparency.net/
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http://iatiregistry.org/
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http://meta.census.okfn.org/
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https://certificates.theodi.org/about
itself.Itsstrategyandactivitiesarestructuredon5topics:
Communicationstakingopendataandbringingittoamainstreamaudience.
Training/Capacitybuilding
Conveningroundimpacte.g.membership,ODIFutures,ODIConnect,etc.
ResearchandstandardsIntotheimpactofopendata
Innovationworkingontools/projectwherethereisapressinggap
As OD is becoming global, due to e.g. G8 strong commitments on Open by default, ODI is as

well marrying a global presence with a local delivery network working at a country level. One of
the key tools to measure the state of OD at the country level is the Open Data Barometer which
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theODIcollaboratesonwiththeWebFoundation.
In terms of geographic focus, ODI has a strong interest in Africa, to ensure that the poorest are
not left behind in terms of technologies and new approaches like OD. The selection of countries
and the entry points is not based on geography but more on conditions. It is critical for ODI to
work with local leaders that have identified a clear set of challenges for which OD can help so
thatthemeasurementofimpactisdoneonarobustbaseline.
As part of the Partnership for Open Data, ODI works currently in Burkina Faso, Botswana,
Morocco, India, and Mexico. ODI also works in a few other Asian countries, and have launched
discussionswithafewGulfcountriesaswellasotherEuropeanones.
In terms of sector, ODI is agnostic, and is more focused for now on global standards. In the
future, it might engage with specific sectorial work like the development of technical standards
for specific purpose. In the same way, while tools (software) are important enablers, ODI is
focusing on where the gaps in the OD ecosystem exist and have created small tools that fill
thosegapslikehttp://csvlint.io/ whichprovidesavalidationserviceforcsvfiles.
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Intermsofactors,ODIworksprimarilywithgovernmentandbusinesses.
In terms of international partnerships, ODI is part of the founders of the Partnership for Open
Data. It is also heavily involved in OGP, and actively participates in the development of technical
standards(e.g.CSVontheWeb )atW3C.
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3.1.11. World Wide Web Foundation

The Web Foundation believes that the development of Open Government Data (OGD) initiatives
inlowandmiddleincomecountrieswouldhaveacriticalimpactontheirfuturedevelopment.
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http://www.opendataresearch.org/project/2013/odb
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http://csvlint.io/
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http://www.w3.org/2013/csvw/wiki/Main_Page
One of the main objectives of the Web Foundation is to work at the local level to help build locally
sustainable Open Data ecosystems by defining country strategies to support the implementation
ofopennessinitiativesmainlytargetinglowandmiddleincomecountries.
For these to be successful, the strategies will take actions across institutional, legal,
organizational, technical, social and economic dimensions, engaging the various relevant actors.
Theappliedapproachisalwaysgradual,withshortandlongertermobjectives.
Additionally, the Web Foundation also builds global resources to help others replicate successful
initiatives,documentingsuccessesandfailures,challengesfoundandhowtoaddressthem.
In the near future the Web Foundation plans also to establish regional agencies in Africa and
Asia to better detect and address local needs, as well as in Latin America through the
collaborationwithotherregionalpartners.
The longterm vision of the Web Foundation is that every country should be able to observe the
impact of Open Data initiatives, understand the costs and benefits of such initiatives, understand
the processes required for implementation, and find support for engaging and completing this
implementation.
In order to achieve that vision of locally sustainable longterm successes the Web Foundation
proposes to address the challenges across all dimensions and accelerate global adoption of
Open Data in the citizengovernment context by a twofold approach a) conducting actions at a
local scale that can be replicated globally, such as building locally sustainable OGD ecosystems
in specific countries and b) actions at a global scale for supporting countries to achieve the
promisesandbenefitsofOpenData.
Someoftheprojectsthatshowcasethedifferentcomponentsofthisvisionare:
Open Data in Developing Countries (ODDC): a multicountry, multiyear study to

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understand how open data is being put to use in different countries and contexts across
thedevelopingworld.
Indonesia Open Data Lab : with the aim of building a focal point for everyone interested
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in open data and help to catalyze positive change towards a more transparent,
accountable, participatory and responsive government, and as a stimulus for innovation
andeconomicgrowth.
Open Contracting : for the development of a common standard for the disclosure of
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http://www.opendataresearch.org/project/2013/oddc
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http://webfoundation.org/2013/11/launchingphase2ofthewebfoundationsopendataengagementinindone
sia/
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http://www.opencontracting.org/significant_step_forward_for_global_transparency
contracting data is a key pillar of the work of the Open Contracting Partnership to
promote disclosure and participation in public contracting empowering citizens around
the world to hold their governments to account for the estimated US $9.5 trillion they
spendeachyearthroughcontracts.
The OGP Open Data Working Group to provide practical ways for participants to
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share experiences, expertise, and lessons learned, as well as identify opportunities for
targeted technical assistance and/or peer exchange and the Global Open Data Initiative
(GODI) an initiative led by civil society organizations intended to provide a roadmap of
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policies and institutions that countries can use to build meaningful new open data
reformsandinitiatives,informedbythesuccessesofothers.
Their main founders and supporters for these projects are the International Development
ResearchCentre(IDRC),theFordFoundationandtheOmidyarNetwork.
3.1.12. Wellcome Trust

While Wellcome Trust (WT) is not a major actor in OD, it is one of the very few driving a
coordinatedinitiativeinhealth.
Indeed, WT leads the Public Health Research Data Forum (PHRDF), launched in 2011, that
brings together big international funders (private funders such as e.g. Hewlett Foundation or
Gates Foundation, governments, international organizations, etc.) developing activities in global
healthresearch.
Members of the forum are committed to increase the availability of data generated from their
activities. The Forum focuses primarily on data generated from research, rather than data
collected for other purposes . e.g. administrative data. The key principles of the forum are
focusedondatasharinginanethical,equitable,efficientandcosteffectiveway.
The role of the forum is to identify key challenges in data sharing, and develop research and
solutions to tackle the identified issues. An important piece of research that is ongoing (driven by
WT) is related to data discoverability and addresses the challenges of how datasets could be
more easily identified, queried and accessed. This covers different topics such as the possible
creation of a dedicated portal, the definition of common data standards or the development of
goodpracticesandguidancenotes.
Another project supported by the Wellcome Trust on behalf of the forum is is investigating the
views of research participants and stakeholders on how to maximize the benefit of data sharing
while protecting individual privacy and confidentiality. In addition, the Hewlett Foundation has
funded research to explore models for capacity building in data management in low and
middleincomecountries.
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http://www.opengovpartnership.org/sites/default/files/attachments/ODWG%20Draft%20Workplan.pdf
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Up to now, PHRDF has been mostly a coordination body, and while members develop activities
under its banner, PHRDF has not been a jointfunding initiative. This may evolve in the future as
the momentum is developing, and some work, like e.g. a shared data portal, may require support
fromthemembers.
Future activities include new research based on identified challenges. In particular, studies on
the impact and benefits of sharing data need to be engaged. This will lead to the identifications of
usecasesandexampleshighlightingtherationaleforengaginginOpenData.
Apart from the PHRDF, WT also works closely on the possible synergies with national open data
initiative, and how to take advantage of release of specific datasets by the Government. This
workiscurrentlyfocusedinUKonly.
In the same way, WT is engaged since many years in leveraging open access to research
publications. While this is linked with the work on data sharing, the challenges are quite different
andeasiertosolveonpublications,comparedtodata.
The Wellcome Trusts total research expenditure is around 700 million per annum. In terms of
geography, WT primarily focuses on the UK, but its international program accounts for 15% of
thetotalfundingmostlyinSubSaharanAfrica,IndiaandSouthEastAsia.
3.1.13. Sunlight Foundation

Sunlight Foundation (SF) is one of the major actors in the Open Government Data domain in the
UnitedStatesandnowincreasinglyonthegloballevel.
SF focuses primarily on transparency and accountability. Its objectives are to provide better
access to important government information for citizens and media through the use of
technology,onlinetoolsandopendata.
To achieve these goals, SL uses hybrid methods bringing together developers, policy advocates
and investigative reporters in order to influence and lobby government to release more data that
canhaveanimpactoncitizens`lives.
SL activities reflect this hybrid aspect, and the organization produces tools and websites to
engage citizens and media and give them access in a more friendly way to key information. It
also produces policy guidelines to promote more transparency and accountability for local to
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nationalgovernments.
In terms of specific areas, SL is particularly interested in money in politics issues, and developed
a few tools in that area. Regarding its technical activities, Sunlight focuses primarily on tools but
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SeetheSunlightOpenDataPolicyGuidelinesathttp://sunlightfoundation.com/opendataguidelines/
has done some work with standards. Its most substantial work in this area has been its Open
CivicDatainitiative .
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SL works primarily with civil society organizations, media and technologists (civic hackers,
developers,startupsintechnologyetc.).
The vast majority of the activities of SL focus on the United States (local, state and federal level).
In the same way, most of the approaches and tools that SL develops are relevant in countries
withgoodInternetinfrastructureandgoodpenetrationoftechnologyamongcitizens.
However, SL is now increasingly engaged in the global open data movement with an official
international program. The role of SL is creating resources for and building the capacities of local
actors to develop their own strategy to respond to local problems. Through consultation and
issuespecificguidelines,SLwillbeabletohelptheseactors.
Toolsthataremoreadaptedtothedevelopingcountriescontextmaybedevelopedinthefuture.
In terms of geography, the program so far has expanded through preexisting adhoc
connections, mostly in Latin America and Europe. While SL does not have yet a huge network in
Africa or SouthEast Asia, it is likely that the international program will also expand in these
regions.
In terms of funding, SL works through grants received only from private donors, and does not
accept money from government bodies. Major funders include Omidyar Network, Google
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Foundation,KnightFoundationorHewlettFoundation.
3.2. Major Regional Actors

The overall study highlights the wide variety of actors in the domain of Open Data in developing
countries (160+ actors identified). Among these actors, few global ones have been identified and
presented in the previous section. However, while analyzing the lists of actors, we realized that
thereweresomeregionaldynamicsthatareworthmentioninghere.
3.2.1. Latin America & the Caribbean
TheLatinAmericaandCaribbeanregionistheregionoftheWorldwhereODiswellstructured.
There are a set of key players (Fundacion Avina, UN ECLAC, W3C Brazil, the Open Caribbean
Institute, IDRC as the principal donor) that are coordinating the work at the regional level, and
organizing knowledge sharing at the regional level, supported by a regional conference that
alreadyhappenedinJune2013,andisbecomingayearlyevent.
This set of players is acting globally and in a holistic approach covering the supply and the
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http://opencivicdata.org/
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Seeadetailedlistoffundersandgrantsathttp://sunlightfoundation.com/about/funding/
demand side, as well as the specificities of the contexts in the region (e.g. offline underprivileged
communities).
To the best of our knowledge, such regional cooperation mechanism is unique compared to
otherregions.
3.2.2. Africa
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the study didnt highlight such set of key players that
are structuring the dialogues and exchanges at the regional level, even at the subregional level
likeEast,West,SouthernorNorthernAfrica.
However, as one difference compared to other regions, there are a set of very targeted
initiatives, mostly on the demandside, that have a regional footprint. This includes in particular
theAfricanMediaInitiativeandtheCode4Africainitiative.
3.2.3. Other Developing Regions
In other developing regions (Asia, Pacific, Eastern Europe), while there are always country
examples (e.g. Mongolia, Moldova, Philippines or Indonesia), and in each of these countries,
specific actors that are particularly active (e.g. Ford Foundation in Indonesia), the study was not
able to identify regionwide initiatives, either covering specific areas or covering broader aspects
ofOD.
3.3. Innovative Actors

This section highlights a few actors that are bringing a specific approach to the OD domain. This
list is not exhaustive, and complements the major actors cited above. However, the actors below
are approaching the OD topic in an innovative way, or propose new directions to explore in the
future.
3.3.1. Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller foundation, while being one of the major private donors in the US and in the World,
doesnothaveanyprogramoractivitiesthataredirectlyrelatedtoOpenData.
However, one of the latest and biggest programs of Rockefeller foundation is about Youth and
employment. Within this program, a project in Ghana was developed to support the Ghana
96
OpenDataInitiative ,andtohelptheGovernmentofGhanatodigitizerecords.
97
This project as well as other related ones driven by Rockefeller Foundation (medical records
digitization)demonstratesadirectlinkbetweenjobcreation,youthemploymentandOpenData.
Given the importance of the development of the ICT sector, the increased interest in BPO,
investigation and research around the potential links between OD and job creation and youth
96
http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/uploads/files/e5fb5619bb7b4c5eb9df0606752c73eecasestudy.pdf
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http://data.gov.gh/
employment should be explored further to lead towards integrating specific activities in OD
initiatives.
3.3.2. Orange
OrangeisoneoftheleadingMobileNetworkOperatorintheWorldandinAfricainparticular.
While not being an actor in the OD space, Orange has started to investigate the power of its own
data, and the potential impact if they would release this data. In 2013, they launched a
competition (Data for Development competition D4D) around this theme in Ivory Coast , and
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theyareplanningtorelaunchthesameinSenegalthisyear.
While these competitions are somehow anecdotal, the potential of the approach is significant.
Mobile phone operators data provides an important opportunity to better understand how people
moveduringtheday,overtheyear,andsoon.
This data has an incredible potential to support evidencebased decision related to town
planning, transport, migration, etc. However, the number of challenges are also huge (amount of
data, algorithms to extract information, privacy concerns etc.). These datasets would not only
open a new world of opportunities, but will also open a complete new world of research that
needstobedeveloped.
The activities launched by Orange underline the fact that Mobile Operators are potentially
interestedtojoinforceswiththeODcommunityinthisarea.
3.3.3. Govlabs
The Governance Lab (The GovLab) is a department of NewYork University and aims to improve
peoples lives by changing how countries are governed. The GovLab is seeking new ways to
solvepublicproblemsusingadvancesintechnologyandscience.
The current core initiative of GovLab is the Open Data 500 project (OD500). OD500 is the first
99
comprehensive study of U.S. companies that use open government data to generate new
businessanddevelopnewproductsandservices.
While this project focuses only on the US and not on developing countries yet, the methodology
about evaluating the business impact of OD is applicable in other part of the world. The core
focusoftheprocessistoevaluateeconomicvalueofOD.Itisstructuredin3aspects:
1. AssessingbusinessvalueofOD,
2. FindingbusinessesusingODandhelpingthemtodoabetterjob,
3. Facilitating public sectorprivate sector dialogues for the release of datasets that will
98
http://www.d4d.orange.com/fr/Accueil
99
http://www.opendata500.com/
increasetheeconomicvalueforbusinesses.
GovLab is interested in replicating the OD500 study in different region of the world, to strengthen
themethodologyandincreasetheevidencesoftheimpactofODonbusinessvalues.
While this will first start with European countries like UK, GovLab is interested to also look at
developingcountrycontext.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the only initiative the study found measuring the business
impact of OD. Not only this is critical for the countries where the study is developed, but it is also
veryinformativeandapotentialconvincingargumentforcountriesthatareinvestigatingOD.
It would be therefore, essential to run such studies and surely adapt it to the developing country
contextinthefewmostadvancedcountriesinthedifferentdevelopingregions.
4. Global Survey Results
As part of the research, we developed a basic questionnaire that served as a common baseline
for conducting the interviews. This questionnaire was also used as the basis for a short online
survey to reach a broader group of stakeholders. In this section the main findings and figures
fromthequestionnaireresultarepresentedandanalysed.
The questionnaire was responded by a total of 78 different organizations worldwide. The usual
profile of the respondent was a director in the case of small organizations or a programme
managerforbiggerones.
We can appreciate a big influence of nongovernmental and civil society organizations in the
Open Data for development agenda, with an increasing role from the private sector. The low
values presented by the public sector are explained by their underrepresentation in the
respondents, given that the focus of the study was on the demand side of the different
stakeholders.
There is an equal distribution between small and larger organizations participating in the study,
with a significant number of microorganizations working in the topic. On one side this could be
positive in terms of agility and flexibility, on the other, their capacity to face projects with certain
extent may be somehow limited, especially if we take also into consideration that a
representative number of them are not only specialized in Open Data, being just one of their
areasofaction.
The Partnership for Open Data could play here a relevant role supporting these smaller
organizationstosharetheirknowhowandjoineffortsinaccomplishingmorecomplexprojects.
Most of the organizations involved in the study are relatively new and have usually been
established along this century or during the end of the last one at most. In contrast, there are
also a few others with more than a century of history (basically Universities, Newspapers, some
International Organizations and a few big commercial companies). Nevertheless, as this is a
relatively new topic, obviously their track record in relation with Open Data projects and initiatives
is in general limited to the last three years or so, with a few years more for the veterans in the
area.
A vast majority of the organizations in the study are already active in providing support to
developing countries on Open Data activities. Furthermore, from those already active, most
(aroundthreequarters)arealsowillingtoexplorenewfutureopportunitiesinthearea.
Just a few of the questionnaire respondents are neither active nor looking for Open Data
opportunities, but are still somehow involved in the topic and all of them requested a followup to
know more on how to be involved in the Partnership. These (e.g. Trade Mark East Africa or
Oxfam) could be interesting opportunities to explore in order to reach new objectives and
operationsareas,alongallthosethathaveexpressednotbeingactiveyet,butwillingtodoso.
Apparently the wide range of Open Data supporting activities are in general well covered by the
different organizations working in the area. Education and capacity building being the most
frequent activities, and those related with data collection ones to be potentially under represented
giventhechallengeitrepresentsinseveraldevelopingcountries.
This scenario foresees a variety of potential new partners for all main areas of the partnership:
communications, implementation and funding. Although funding is the less common area of
activity,thatsalsotheexpectedandreasonableoutput.
Questionnaire participants, being the specialized organizations they are, usually conduct their
Open Data related activities mostly by means of their own internal resources, although some of
them especially those players involved in bigger projects sometimes make use of an
outsourcingandgrantcombination.
Lending does not appear to be an option in practise for the support of Open Data projects yet. In
contrast, other supporting schemes have been mentioned several times as a usual way of
performing certain tasks. These include collaboration through different networks, partnerships or
membershiporganizations,aswellasvoluntarywork.
The organizations responding the questionnaire are already supporting Open Data activities in
79 different low and middle income countries all around the world. In a considerable number of
cases there are just one or two organizations working in a given country a big number of them
count on a wider variety of actors involved in Open Data related activities and just in a few
cases we can found a considerable number of organizations (6 or more), with a special
emphasis on Kenya (17) and Uganda (12) and others following: Indonesia, Mexico, Tanzania,
Nepal,Brazil,Uruguay,Ghana,Argentina,India,PeruandPhilippines.
There is not much difference with respect to the countries that are expected to be covered in the
near future, with almost all stakeholders planning to keep working on the same areas and
countries. Opportunities to widen countries coverage could come from the international
organizations and their operations and presence, or the promotion of new grassroots
organizationsinsuchcountrieswiththesupportofthepartnership.
Several clear gaps can finally be detected in different areas: Central America and its extension
intoSouthAmerica,NorthernAfrica,EasternEuropeorthePacificforexample.
Transparency and Governance are clear dominant areas in the open data vision of the
stakeholders analysed. In the case of Transparency this may be affected by the large number of
organizations that have been introduced in the Open Data world by means of previous
transparency related activities, such as governments accountability or access to information
rights.
Other key dimension such as economic and social development, although included as relevant
areas for around a half of respondents, still falls behind and this could be part of the underlying
reasonsforthecurrentlackofimpactevidencefromOpenDatainitiatives.
As expected, Government and the different Civil Society Organizations are the most frequent
players from the Open Data ecosystem being involved in projects underway. Academia and
research play an important role, probably given the still emerging nature of the topic where there
is a continuous need and demand of best practices, impact and benefits research. International
Agencies have also an important enabling function, but in general all frequent stakeholders in the
OpenDataecosystemhaveagoodrepresentation.
Given that several questionnaire participants prefer not to disclose any figures on financial
resources to support Open Data projects, is quite difficult to provide any estimation of current
and future planned investment in Open Data initiatives. The figures above should be considered
just as a rough estimation based on available information, but it is expected that real figures are
significantly higher, considering that the biggest investments usually come from several donors
currentlysupportingmostoftheseprojects.
Some of the biggest funders (both, in terms of number of projects and total amount of
investment) of Open Data initiatives in developing countries include: IDRC World Bank Web
Foundation Open Society Foundations Omidyar Network Hewlett Foundation DFID Ford
Foundation UNDP USAID Google Avina Americas Hivos Rockefeller Foundation SIDA and
theEuropeanCommission.
Finally, and as a very positive closing remark, more than ninety per cent of the respondents
expressed their interest in receiving more information about how to participate in the Partnership
forOpenData.
5. Recommendations
This section compiles the different elements outlined in the previous sections and proposes a
setofrecommendationsintermsofactivitiesandgeographicalfocus.
5.1. Activities
The study highlighted a series of gaps or challenges in the domain that needs to be addressed to
increase the impact of OD in social and economic development of LMICs. Each
recommendationisdetailedbelow.
Building a live searchable repository of actors in the domain
Concerning the direct output of this study, lots of interviewees mentioned the importance of this
SOA exercise. There is very little information available about the different actors of the domain,
and very little visibility of the smaller actors working at the local or regional level. This study is
thereforeclearlyfillingagapandhasbeenrecognizedassuchbymanypeoplewespokewith.
However, many interviewees also highlighted the very short lifetime of the snapshot this study
has built. In the next few months, most of the information will be outdated, and the value will
decline quickly. One way to address this issue would be to transform the actors and
countries list in a live repository in the form of a web application that will allow existing
actorstoupdatetheirrecords,newactorstoregisteretc.
As POD is taking a leading role in the domain, it sounds natural for POD secretariat to take on
such an initiative as a direct followup of this study. This will allow the results to be transformed
inavaluableliveresourceforthedomain.
Methodology for National OD Initiative

The second key recommendation is related to improving the methodology to approach national
OD initiatives. The development of numerous vertical initiatives on specific domains highlighting
how to use OD for specific impact is a great opportunity for larger development and adoption of
ODatthenationallevel.
However, the relative disconnect between OD initiatives and domainspecific approaches is

currently a missed opportunity. It would be very valuable to integrate all the
domainspecific initiatives in national initiatives. Such integration should be at the
methodological level, developing a holistic approach. The evaluation of the relevance of the
different vertical elements should happen at all stages of the process from the readiness
assessment, the development of the action plan till the implementation and the development of
theecosystem.
In the same way, most of vertical initiatives should also explore further how to link with
National OD Initiatives (e.g. what are the key datasets they rely on, where those datasets are
in the government, etc.). The example of the media initiative is a great example that underlines
the potential of such approach, even if in essence the media approach is relatively horizontal,
crosscuttingallsectors.
Developing OD publication by CSOs

The third key element to leverage impact of OD is to promote OD among organizations and
communities as a global way to interact between partners. It would be critical to build capacities
among CSOs not only to reuse data but also to publish their own data. To support this process,
the integration of OD export functionalities in key ICT tools, as well as the availability of CSOs
dataportalsshouldbepromoted.
It may be interesting to stop splitting the OD community in demandside vs supplyside but

promote OD has a way of working based on the consumption of available data as well as
release of data. Some communities are starting to use OD in this way (e.g. land community and
the Land Portal). In the same way, the French Government is developing an innovative approach
to national OD portal integrating in the design and process a feedback loop with the reusers
100
community, as well as a way for nongovernmental producers of data to use the national portal
topublishtheirdata.
Such examples highlight new opportunities and approaches that would strengthen the OD
ecosystem. More generally, smaller organizations like practitioners in the field should be
engaged to both take advantage of available data, but also release their data to the community.
This could be leveraged through the development of automatic data anonymization and
publicationmodulesinmostpopularICT/Mobiletools(e.g.Ushahidi,ODK,etc.).
Improving Quality and Completeness of Data through an OD Process

Along the same line, the quality and completeness of data and therefore its reliability has been
highlighted as a major challenge in the domain. There is low confidence and trust in the data
published e.g. on national open data portal of developing countries. It would be essential to take
an initiative in this area. It may be interesting to consider using an OD process for such
improvement through mashup from different sources that would lead to global
improvement. While such a process is happening at very lowscale with crowdsourcing
process and citizen engagement, it may be interesting to explore how to formalize this approach
athigherlevelinvolvingorganizationsinsteadofindividuals.
Long-term investment is critical

The fifth element to consider is the importance of longterm investment in local ecosystems.
Most of the activities that are engaged at the national level are usually shortterm oneshot
events. It would be interesting to consider supporting components that may be more difficult
intermsoftimeandcoststolaunchbutwhichcouldhaveagreaterlastingimpact.
Examples of e.g. mobile laboratory initiatives (e.g. mLab East Africa in Kenya, mLab
Southern Africa in SouthAfrica, Mobile Web Ghana) that are new types of incubation spaces that
focus on preincubation phases including technical and business training are interesting to
exploreorleverageinthecontextofanationalODInitiative.
Such components will be essential to leverage the possible future Open Data Funds that is
being currently setup. They are critical to expand the base of individuals that are able to develop
businesses and innovation around OD and they serve as a relay between local individuals that
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Seehttp://data.gouv.fr
are not necessarily aware and able to take advantage of international opportunities and
internationalinitiativesthatarelookingforlocaltalentsandlocalinnovation.
Research in Privacy and Anonymization

The next element that was mentioned by few respondents is related to privacy and
anonymization. There seems to be a growing interest of the community to look at the privacy
aspect of OD, how anonymization is performed, and how OD could be harmful for individual.
There is little evidences of conversations taking place right now on these matters, and this may
be something to consider for the future. Further research in this area should be engaged to
identify risks and challenges, and to establish processes to improve citizen privacy
protection.
Developing data standards

The last element that starts to be impacting negatively the community is the lack of common
datastandards.
While the issue has been clearly identified in almost all vertical activities and is tackled
accordingly (e.g. IATI, contracting standard, etc.), there is no real active initiative to investigate
this area globally. This is problematic for comparisons between geographies, for reuse of tools
and visualizations, for greater reuse of datasets, etc. It would be beneficial for the domain to
reviveinitiativeslikeGODI(GlobalOpenDataInitiative).
OD for Social and Economic Development
The third set of recommendations is related to the role of OD in social and economic
developmentofLMICs.
Develop further OD focus on development sectors
Concerning the social dimension, the study was not able to identify major initiatives in the
traditional social development sector such as agriculture, education and health. The agriculture
domain is the one that is the most developed for now, with a few components in the area of
climate changes, plus the new GODAN initiative that may serve as the umbrella for further
101
investigations in the domain. It would be natural for POD to link with GODAN and coordinate
actions and activities to create synergies. In the same way, POD should link with the Open
Transport Initiative for transport, the Public Health Research Data Forum for health data or
actorslikee.g.REEEPconcerningtheenergysector.
Then, similar to the transparency domain, it would be essential to identify a few areas in each
sector where OD could make a difference and start the development of vertical
activities in these areas. One possible way to initiate this process is to engage cooperation
with the ICT for Development (ICTD or ICT4D) sector that is already structured (e.g.
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http://godan.info
mEducation Alliance , mHealth Alliance ). In ICTD, quite lots of research has been developed
102 103
to identify the role of technology in these sector, and it might be efficient to bring OD within these
preexisting context, and explore how OD could solve some of the challenges these sectors are
facing. The objectives here should be the development of specific vertical activities in each of
these core development sectors, following the same pattern as described in the Key Findings
section.
Focus on economic development and business opportunities

Concerning the economic development dimension, despite the lots of research on the topic, as
well as the anecdotal evidences of great successes (e.g. the OD500 study), there isnt any real
roadmap in the domain. This area is surely essential for most of government to engage in OD,
anditmaybeinterestingtobuildmorecasesrelatedtojobcreation,andbusinesscreation.
While most of the research so far has been on monitoring and evaluation, it would be essential
to develop the theme like vertical initiatives that identify a set of opportunities in job
creation, and business creation, and identify a set of activities to engage for impact in
these areas. The work done as part of the OD500 study, or projects run by the Rockefeller
Foundation on records digitization are examples of these opportunities, but needs to be more
formalized in action plans. OD500 is one example of initiatives taking place in western countries
that would be interesting to replicate in developing countries. Other examples include e.g. Open
CorporatesthathavefornowverylittlelinkwithLMICs.
Future areas to explore

Finally, in terms of future new domain to explore, mobile operator data seems to be a gold
mine that is largely untapped right now. Given the importance of mobile in LMICs for
communication, but also now for other services such as e.g. financial transactions, the data that
mobile operators have could have a huge role to play in many sectors (transport, city/country
development strategy, market research, demographic, etc.). There is tremendous work to do
in such areas in terms of data standards, algorithm for analysis, anonymization,
application of results, etc. Given that some operators are starting to explore this potential, it is
agreatopportunitytoexploreinthefuture.
5.2. Countries
While it is very difficult and slightly irrelevant to recommend work in specific regions or countries,
thestudyhighlightedafewkeyelementsthatareimportanttoconsider:
Kenya, the first country starting a national OD initiative in Africa has lost its momentum,
and the initiative is more or less stalled. While there are multiple reasons for such a
situation, the domain needs shining examples of success. It would be interesting to
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http://www.meducationalliance.org/
103
http://mhealthalliance.org/
conduct an indepth analysis and document the process that led the initiative to reach its
current state. It may even be interesting to see how to revive an initiative that didnt take
off.
Some countries are in the early phase of their national OD initiatives (e.g. Nigeria,
Tanzania, Mexico, Brazil), and both the government and the civil society are mobilized.
Such context is likely to be more appropriate to experiment some of the activities
highlightedintheprevioussubsection.
Some countries, while not yet engaged in a national initiative, look promising for POD
engagement in a near future. In these countries, there are active communities either on
the government side, or on the civil society side. However, in almost all of them one of
the two parts is missing (demandside or supplyside) and more indepth assessment
would be required to rank them in terms of opportunities. These sets of countries include
Nepal,Uganda,EthiopiaorIndonesia.
While initiatives have started all over the World, it seems that some regions are less
developed than others. Central America, South Asia (India in particular), South East Asia,
the Pacific, Southern Africa, francophone West Africa and central America are regions in
whichfuturedevelopmentshouldhappenoratleastbepromoted.
6. Conclusion
The aim of this study was to provide a snapshot of the actors engaged in OD in developing
countries. While the domain is relatively new, the number of potential actors and the level of
interest is high. While a big part of the actors identified are new entrants, with no or very little
past experience, this looks very promising for the domain, and it is an opportunity for POD to
engage with all these organizations, help them build their capacities and help them become
contributorsanddeploytheirexpertiseandexperienceinthefieldforagreaterimpact.
The second key highlight of the study is the existing gaps in the domain. Despite the relatively
high number of organizations and networks identified, the amount of funding invested and the
number of past, ongoing and planned activities and projects, the core output of this work
highlights a series of gaps in the approaches currently developed both at global and local levels.
There is clearly a need for more cooperation and more integration of the different actors and
activities, and the development of a unified agenda among donors about the core items to tackle.
Inthatregard,thePartnershipforOpenDatahasamajorroletoplayinthenearfuture.

Annex A : Methodology & Context
A.1. Methodology
Our methodology for the analysis of different stakeholders and actors followed a 3staged
approach.
STAGE 1: Desk Research
As a first step to identify the different actors involved in current initiatives, we conducted an
extensive desk research and review of existing Open Data activities in developing countries
followingtheLowandMiddleIncomeCountriesclassification(LMIC)fromtheWorldBank
104
The desk research was built mainly on the top of previous findings from the Open Data
Barometer and Open Data Census studies complemented with additional research,
105 106
especially for those countries not covered by the aforementioned studies. Additional research
drewupononlinesourcesandotherpublishedmaterialsfromrelevantsourcessuchas:
TheOpenGovernmentPartnershipcountryactionplans.
The different Open Data Readiness Assessments (ODRAs) published by the Web
FoundationandtheWorldBank(aswellasotherindependentstudies)
The Open Data Research Network, especially the Exploring the Emerging Impacts of
OpenDatainDevelopmentCountries(ODDC)'program.
TheOpenDataforDevelopment(OD4D)ProjectforcountriesinLatinAmerica.
Other reports published by multilateral bodies (e.g. United Nations, OECD, African
DevelopmentBank,ePSIPlatform,etc.)
References contributed by the Open Data community members through knowledge
networkssuchastheOpenKnowledgeFoundationanditsdifferentWorkingGroups
107
This initial desk research led to the identification of a list of more than 160 institutions and
programmes(seeAnnex1).
At the same time, the study also established a database of Open Data programmes already
underway in LMICs, indicating a rough assessment of their main characteristics (web address,
number of datasets, license and APIs at a minimum where available), as well as key strengths
andmainweaknessoftheunderlyingprogrammes(seeAnnex2).
STAGE 2: Interviews & Online Questionnaire

For the second phase of research, a basic questionnaire was developed (see Annex 3) to
104
WorldBankCountrygroups:
http://data.worldbank.org/about/countryclassifications/countryandlendinggroups
105
OpenDataBarometer:http://www.opendataresearch.org/project/2013/odb
106
OpenDataCensus:http://census.okfn.org/
107
OKFNWorkingGroups:http://okfn.org/wg/
identify the key dimensions to investigate for each institution. Then the list of actors identified in
the first stage was split in 2 categories: the primary actors (those that seemed to be more active
in the domain) and the nonprimary ones. The primary actors were interviewed by the research
teamfromSBC4D,whilethenonprimaryoneswererequestedtofillinashortonlinesurvey.
108
STAGE 3: Conclusions
This is the content of this report. The findings and recommendations are based on the analysis
of the different responses and the identification of specific patterns, as well as areas that are not
(or insufficiently) covered and new opportunities that are starting to appear. The analysis is
constructedalongthefollowingdimensions:
Thekeyplayers
Thetypeofapproachesandactivities
Theangleofattackofthedifferentorganizations
Thegeographicfocus
Thepast,currentandfutureinvestment(s)inthedomain
A.2. Developing Countries Context

This study focuses on Open Data in Developing Countries and for the readers that are not
familiar with the context of Developing Countries, it is essential to understand the specific
conditions and challenges that have to be tackled. The biggest differences compared to western
countriesrelatestoICT .Thereareatleast3factorsthatareessentialtoconsider:
109
Population profile: There are 2 major characteristics to take into account: the illiteracy
rate and the language. Illiteracy rate can be above 50% among the adult population (e.g.
in Ethiopia or Mali). This is obviously a major barrier for accessing any written content,
and an essential parameter to take into account when working towards citizen
engagement. The second key element is the language. In LMICs, while there is a national
language such as English, French, Spanish or Portuguese, these languages are spoken
by the privileged minority, while most of people are speaking only their local language.
Some of these languages particularly in Asia have their own script that is not renderable
onscreen.
Importance of mobile: in the last decade mobile telephony has revolutionized how
people communicate and access information in almost all developing countries.
Nowadays, mobile penetration rate is above 60%, and most of the population
(usually>90%) is covered by at least a GSM network. Thanks to business models based
108
Allcontactsgot3roundsofnotices:theinitialemail,thenwithoutanswerafter10daysanothernotice,
andafinalonetoannouncetheendofthesurveyforApril19.
109
It is also important to understand that the impact of these challenges are different from countries to
countries, and may be more or less prevalent in some context. It is therefore essential to characterize the
ICTsectorinordertoidentifythekeyspecificitiestotakeintoaccountinagivencountry
on prepaid subscription, mobile phones and airtime are affordable for a big part of the
population. However, it important to note that in lots of countries, phones are basic
phones that are not able to connect to the internet. In the same way, networks,
particularly in rural area, dont always have data capabilities. Since a few years now,
there have been lots of initiatives aiming at delivering ICT services on mobile phones
using basic technologies such as SMS or IVR. These services are spanning over all
sectors from e.g. agriculture to health to financial services. In this later case, the
development of mobile payments and mobile money in the last 5 years has been
exponential. In the context of developing countries, the concept of mobile money allows
110
unbanked people to access minimal banking services, and allow them to exchange
moneypersontoperson,andalsopayforservices.
Poor Internet infrastructure and usage: Despite the explosion of mobile telephony, the
internet usage is still very low, with penetration usually below 5 or 6% in most LMICs. the
lackofaccessandexposuretoICTisamajorbarrierforexploitationofOpenData.
Throughout the study and in this document, these three factors, and more specifically the last 2,
impact the analysis of the different activities. For instance, in numerous sections, a strong
emphasis is put on mobile technologies. In the same way, the study stresses in few places the
importance of intermediaries in particular media to serve as a relay to transform Open Data in
usable,accessibleandactionableinformationforpeople.
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http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/programmes/mobilemoneyfortheunbanked

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Open Data in Developing Countries: State of the Art

The number of actors interested in Open Data in Developing Countries is growing

2.1. Global Findings

Size of community: at least 160, mostly new

Focus of actors: OD as objective not a tool

Little connection to ICT initiatives

2.2. Vision & Angle of attack

Horizontal activities: Activities that are looking towards opening data in a

Interaction between vertical and horizontal activities

However, it is important to note that countries engagement is not geographically homogeneous.

3.1. Major Global actors

From a supplyside perspective, TWB provides technical assistance and support to

Global Media Development Program

Fiscal Transparency and Accountability

1. Stocktake of the Bank's work on fiscal transparency in public financial management

It seeks to accelerate achievement of these goals by bringing together a diverse group of

Open Data for Resilience Initiative (OpenDRI)

Research of evidences of impact of OD in as many sectors and contexts as possible

Concerning fiscal transparency, ON is investing in 2 dimensions related to the theme of follow

Concerning general OD activities, ON objective is to understand how to benchmark the

3.1.9. Open Knowledge Foundation (OKF)

3.1.10. Open Data Institute (ODI)

The development of technical and social standards to make use of OD (publication,

As OD is becoming global, due to e.g. G8 strong commitments on Open by default, ODI is as

3.1.11. World Wide Web Foundation

Open Data in Developing Countries (ODDC): a multicountry, multiyear study to

3.1.12. Wellcome Trust

3.1.13. Sunlight Foundation

3.2. Major Regional Actors

3.3. Innovative Actors

Methodology for National OD Initiative

However, the relative disconnect between OD initiatives and domainspecific approaches is

Developing OD publication by CSOs

It may be interesting to stop splitting the OD community in demandside vs supplyside but

Improving Quality and Completeness of Data through an OD Process

Long-term investment is critical

Research in Privacy and Anonymization

Developing data standards

Focus on economic development and business opportunities

Future areas to explore

STAGE 2: Interviews & Online Questionnaire

A.2. Developing Countries Context

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