PR@ITRealms
The Tony Elumelu Foundation and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
concluded a three-day working session to create a roadmap on how to implement
an ambitious plan to initiate a “data revolution” across Africa.
2015 marks the end of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – a global
initiative with the aim of addressing some of the most intransigent problems
facing millions of people throughout the developing world including extreme
poverty and hunger, gender inequality, and disease, among others. As the world
prepares to establish a new set of goals for the post-2015 development agenda,
the importance of data for human-oriented and sustainable development will play
a critical role , which consequently has led to a global call for a “data
revolution” to improve the availability of development data to ensure that no
group is left behind.
The Tony Elumelu Foundation’s Africapitalism Institute, which conducts
rigorous research on economic and social development, hosted a group of data
experts at it’s offices in Lagos in order to help move the conversation
forward, recognizing that there is an urgent need for a data revolution in
Africa to inform key policies that address some of the continent’s most
critical needs. The Institute represents the private sector’s role in the data
revolution process as both a provider and a consumer.
In order for
Africapitalism – the private sector’s commitment to Africa’s development,
through long-term investment in strategic sectors that drive both economic
prosperity and social wealth – to take root on the continent, the data
revolution must be as inclusive as possible. Commenting on the data revolution,
the Director of the Institute, David Rice, stated, “The proliferation and
ubiquity of information communication technology, electronic financial
transactions, digital commerce, and social media has resulted in an
unprecedented amount of data being gathered by the private sector – data that
would be extraordinarily useful in the formulation of public policy, allocation
of government resources, and creation of effective development strategies for Africa.”
To better meet the challenges and realize the promises of the data
revolution through collective effort among African stakeholders, a High Level
Conference (HLC) on Data Revolution was held in Addis Ababa, March 2015, in
response to a request by African Heads of States. During the HLC, an Africa
Data Consensus (ADC) was adopted, which urges African data communities to
develop a coordinated response and exploit the new opportunity while responding
to the challenge together.
The conversation on the data revolution in Africa continued in Lagos when
the Economic Commission for Africa convened data experts to discuss immediate
steps to be taken to actualize the data revolution in Africa. The Lagos
meeting, hosted by The Tony Elumelu Foundation’s Africapitalism Institute,
included experts from the World Wide Web Foundation, United Nations, African
Union Commission and the Africa Development Bank.
The outcome of the
meeting becomes a permanent annex to the ADC and includes guiding principles
for partnership with other ongoing initiatives at global, national and regional
levels. The meeting also included a webinar session that lasted for 90 minutes
and had over a hundred participants from across the globe.
At the end of the three day session Dozie Ezigbalike from the UN Economic
Commission for Africa (UNECA), said “For me, I see the data revolution as an
active process of doing things in different and new ways; be disruptive of the
status quo if need be, with the objective to empower citizens to become active
participants in processes that would affect them. With access to appropriate
data, appropriately presented, citizens can demand services that they
rightfully deserve, and confirm that the agreed services were actually
delivered.”
The World Wide Web Foundation’s Nnenna Nwakanma, likewise, restated her
commitment to the data revolution saying “Data is the new gold. The more of it
you can generate, use, and share, the more sustainably developed you will be.
Opening up data is key to my work at the Web Foundation and engaging our
expertise towards the Data Revolution in Africa is a firm decision. We are here
to support policy, build capacities, contribute to better governance with data
and support citizen engagement. Our work in research, in Open Data, in
standards, in data labs and in policy advisory will accompany the
implementation of the Africa Data Consensus”.
@The Africapitalism Institute +Remmy Nweke (ITRealms)
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