Sub Saharan Africa

AVERAGE SCORE

14
out of 100

READINESS AVERAGE

27
out of 100

IMPLEMENTATION AVG

12
out of 100

IMPACT AVERAGE

10
out of 100
1 Governments are too dependent on third-parties for creating and sustaining open data initiatives.
2 Only two countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya and South Africa, rank in the top 50.
3 Only two out of 375 datasets in our regional analysis are truly open.

General regional highlights and findings

Africa lags behind other regions in the implementation and impact of open data. No sub-Saharan African country is in the top 30. Only one country, Kenya, ranks in the top 40, while there are seven countries in the bottom ten.

Kenya climbed seven places and remains the regional champion, ranking 35th globally. Ghana jumped 11 places , yet it is still recovering from a big drop in the previous edition. Other countries such as Tanzania or Burkina Faso have also improved, especially in implementation.

Regional Ranking

Global Rank Score Country Readiness Implementation Impact
35 40 Flag Kenya 57 22 58
46 34 Flag South Africa 51 28 29
59 26 Flag Mauritius 38 33 6
59 26 Flag Ghana 52 11 28
67 22 Flag Tanzania 40 17 14
67 22 Flag Burkina Faso 31 16 28
70 21 Flag Nigeria 31 7 41
71 20 Flag Rwanda 29 27 3
81 16 Flag Ethiopia 47 9 0
81NEW 16 Flag Togo 23 24 0
90NEW 12 Flag DR Congo 35 9 0
90 12 Flag Uganda 26 11 4
93NEW 11 Flag Côte d’Ivoire 35 7 0
93 11 Flag Malawi 8 16 13
98 9 Flag Namibia 25 8 0
98 9 Flag Senegal 24 9 0
100 8 Flag Sierra Leone 23 5 7
103 7 Flag Benin 13 13 0
104 6 Flag Botswana 21 4 0
107 5 Flag Cameroon 12 5 7
108 4 Flag Zambia 14 5 0
110 3 Flag Mozambique 14 4 0
111 2 Flag Mali 12 3 0
111 2 Flag Zimbabwe 9 4 0
114NEW 0 Flag Swaziland 10 0 0

Open Data Barometer 4th edition - Regional ranking

How’s the region performing against the rest of the world?

Readiness

Some countries such as Tanzania, Kenya and Burkina Faso improved on open data initiatives, policies, civil society engagement and support for innovation.

In other countries such as Nigeria, Mozambique and Mauritius, three main areas are stagnating: funding for open data initiatives to ensure sustainability, proper data management and right to information reforms.

Implementation

Rwanda and DR Congo each have one fully open dataset. Significant improvements have been made by Ghana, Tanzania and Burkina Faso.

Even regional champions still score low on openness of datasets, with all countries lacking fully open data. Nigeria’s health and education datasets are no longer fully open.

Impact

Most countries are improving in political impact, demonstrated by projects such as the Municipal Money budget initiative on fiscal transparency in South Africa.

The majority of countries show little to no impact in other areas such as inclusion or economy.

Country Profiles

Nigeria is well positioned to be an open data leader in Africa. Yet it appears to be sliding backward given that its education and health data is no longer fully open due to a lack of open licenses. However, the country has begun to see a few strong, civil society-led initiatives emerge. These include Your BudgIT, created on the principle that every citizen should have access to and understand public budgets. In addition, Tracka, a tool used to collaborate, track and give feedback on government projects, helps to disseminate budget and expenditure-related data published by government.

One study in Kenya looked at the impact of open data within grassroots communities, focussing on the delivery of services related to health, water and education. The findings revealed that the low quality of available data limits its use. Another example is the Hunger Safety Net Program that has designed a fully interactive dashboard to display information on cash transfers to support vulnerable and poor people in Kenya. The initiative has the potential to improve inter-agency data sharing, leading to greater efficiency.

Tanzania has increased its scores for civil society engagement (+5) and support for innovation (+3). It has also improved in accountability impact (+2) and economic impact (+1). The country's Big Results Now (BRN) programme that includes its Open Data Portal, provides three open data dashboards on water, health and education. The combination of the BRN programme and the uptick in available data on the National Bureau of Statistics website shows Tanzania’s progress in collecting and disseminating government data.