Rethinking data for accountability
When you devote several years of your professional life to working in a sector and the results feel frustrating, it is time to step back and reflect. The field of open data has an army of dedicated, hard working professionals, but reports suggest impact remains stubbornly limited. A new piece of work we are sharing today proposes that we need to think about how we organize, fund and execute these efforts in more coordinated and methodical ways. This short piece of work is a collaboration between the Transparency and Accountability Initiative (TAI) and the Open Data Charter(ODC), and while it focuses on transparency, it has applicability for open data work for other aims.
Through my work as an open data “expert,” I have seen the challenges inherent in donor funded projects in developing countries first hand. I recently spent a week in a basement working with smart, talented and driven officials training them to clean, license and publish digital information. When going for tea at the end of the week to celebrate, I was then brought through room after room stuffed with slumping stacks of handwritten paper records going back years — decades even.
I have sat down with one of a country’s few data journalists, trained to a high standard in data processing and visualization, and listened to him talk about struggling with the craft of creating the compelling narratives that can move people, while treading the invisible line that keeps his paper from attracting the attention of repressive authorities.
It is not novel to say that in development, good ideas can sometimes undergo a disabling process of simplification and division for the sake of program design and implementation.
If translating a complex idea into reality in development were like making a roast chicken dinner, there would be one highly funded team removing giblets with surgical precision, a civil society organization preparing vegetables, everyone assuming someone else is setting the table, and an academic sitting in the corner whispering that the kitchen has no power and you can’t eat raw chicken, no matter how well garnished it is.
We at TAI and ODC believe that the open data sector is small enough to be able to do things better, and differently. If we are going to improve as a sector and deliver impact — to get people fed with that chicken — we need to understand the complex system connecting data to impact. Then we need to coordinate our investments and program so that they support the system as a whole.
We have developed a first draft of what we think that system looks like, and we would value your comments to improve it (email us at info@opendatacharter.
