(Graphic: John McCann/M&G)
On 23 January, the City of Tshwane launched an open data portal (ODP), becoming the third metropolitan in South Africa to do so, joining the Cities of Cape Town and eThekwini. ODPs are online platforms with large repositories of publicly available data. This data is information that can be freely used, reused and distributed without legal restrictions.
In the South African context, these repositories include information on everything from demographics to the economy and the environment. The core idea behind these portals is to improve access to information, which not only benefits local governments but businesses, civil society and citizens too.
But, with the Cape Town and eThekwini open data portals varying in success, scholars rightly argue that without getting the basic governance mechanisms right first, the benefits of open data systems cannot be fully realised. This raises the question of whether these systems are useful in promoting good governance, especially at a local level or if they are simply another fleeting 4IR trend?
Public sector information is an important component of modern democracies. Barbara Ubaldi argues that it improves government responsiveness, deepens democratic systems such as transparency and accountability and creates opportunities for economic growth and development. However, the effect of this data on fomenting good governance is largely dependent on how accessible it is to citizens.
Open data systems seek to promote broad accessibility by providing a single platform to access several different datasets. For example, Cape Town’s ODP, which first launched in 2015, has more than 120 different datasets ranging from infrastructure data to healthcare. This provides easier access to key subnational data without the need for extensive research. From a local government perspective, this allows municipal management teams to respond to service delivery issues faster, identify and address operational inefficiencies and ensure developmental policies are relevant to the context and needs of its citizens.
However, open data portals also directly benefit other stakeholders in society such as the private sector, who can leverage this publicly available data to better understand the business environment of the city, investment opportunities and market insights. For example, eThekwini’s ODP called “The Durban EDGE” has a wide range of economic datasets from labour data to spatial and climate data. This provides one platform to get data on different economic variables and insights.
Furthermore, such systems are useful in promoting civic participation and providing a direct line of information to communities and citizens. For example, Cape Town’s ODP provides data on water quality, dam levels, and electricity distribution, all of which are vital for ensuring accountability in providing basic services. This information empowers citizens to hold their municipalities more accountable and in turn encourages public participation in local governance.
Open data portals can thus play a crucial role in improving local governance while also benefiting non-governmental stakeholders such as businesses and citizens. But there is often a tendency to view ODPs as a governance ‘silver bullet,’ overlooking key challenges that limit their effectiveness. This can prevent municipalities from fully leveraging the benefits of these platforms.
In South Africa, there are several key issues which can undermine the full effect of open data portals. Specifically, Cape Town and eThekwini ODPs have usability issues, rendering it less user-friendly than it otherwise could be. For example, while Cape Town’s open data portal has a huge number of datasets, it does not have many front-end features, making it difficult to navigate the platform and easily explore the data. Typically, such portals have built in features to visualise and explore the data without needing to download, clean and explore the data manually. Without such features, accessibility, a core principle of open data, is weakened.
Furthermore, another critical issue is the lack of regularly updated data. With the rapid rate of urbanisation in South African cities, timely and relevant data is essential for decision-making. As such, data on these platforms needs to be updated as regularly as possible. But many datasets tend to be quite old, without any updates for several years. For instance, the Durban EDGE open data portal has key data on the water and sanitation systems, including all water and sanitation systems, issue logs and water storage systems. This data is from 2019-20, m limiting the usefulness of such data for stakeholders to make data-driven decisions.
Last, ODPs are a long-term project, requiring sustained political will to ensure adequate budget allocation, a strong and capable ICT component and key stakeholders from different sectors of society. But political will can be inconsistent at times, limiting the effectiveness of open data portals. For example, Durban EDGE has the building blocks for user-friendly features, such as providing visual storyboards for key economic themes such as “Economic Growth” and “Unemployment”. But, in many instances the site struggles to work, undermining the effect these features can have. Rachel Adams and Fola Adeleke highlight this in their 2016 journal article: “Without political will that translates into policy requirements and budgets for record-keeping and disclosure, much of the promise of open data will remain unfulfilled”.
While some key challenges limit the effect of open data portals, many of the issues are quite technical, suggesting that with appropriate measures, these challenges can be addressed. Cross-sector collaborations can address some of the key gaps found in South Africa’s local government open data portals.
Collaborating with the private sector and civil society can help address accessibility and functionality issues, by providing feedback to municipalities on which features work and which do not, allowing them to better adapt their ODP to the needs of communities.
Tech companies and civil society organisations can also help provide expertise to upskill municipal workers on data management, which will reduce the time spent on preparing and formatting the data. This will help streamline data updates, ensuring regular updates without many delays. Furthermore, such collaborations can support data collection efforts by leveraging resources and capacity to help provide real-time and relevant data to municipalities.
Open data portals in eThekwini and Cape Town have had some success in providing more accessible data on key themes and topics, one which businesses and citizens can use to ensure a more responsive government and create economic opportunities. There are still key gaps that remain, limiting the full benefits of ODPs. With support and collaboration from other public and private stakeholders, local governments can better leverage open data portals to realise their full benefits.
Stuart Morrison is a Data Analyst within the Governance Insights and Analytics team at Good Governance Africa. This article was developed based on a recent Good Governance Africa Intelligence Report co-authored by Nnaemeka Ohamadike and Stuart Morrison. GGA’s Intelligence Reports are directed at the private sector to empower optimal capital-allocation decisions.