Open data and Open Government help to empower citizens by increasing government transparency and thereby accountability. However, much of the empowering potential of this civic technology gets lost in translation as activist/ lobbyist led initiatives to enhance good governance and improve government service delivery to citizens. They cease to be participatory and do not seek to develop citizen’s capabilities to be actively engaged in unleashing this immense potential. Code for Africa adopts a capabilities approach led by grassroots citizen organisations and mass media. Their objectives and priorities include making data digitally available and fostering the development of skills and toolkits to enable the ordinary citizen to take advantage of open data. They do this by brining together pioneers who are already supporting data training ranging from institutional partners like the World Bank, industry associations like the International Centre for Journalists, corporate partners like Google and grassroots user-groups such as Hacks/ Hackers. They also sponsor individual change agents through their Data Fellowship and support citizen-driven toolkits and services that demonstrate pragmatic potential.
Rapporteur for the session: Laurent Giacobino, Project Director, Internews.
