Openstat Madagascar

Previous projects were often left behind in Madagascar and some open data platforms don't even contain machine readable data. Unlike these so-called open data platforms, Openstat Madagascar seeks to be the reference where the Civil Society initiator has become itself a data provider to the public.

Associated with a "Datajournalism for SDGs" project funded by CIVICUS World Alliance for 2019, data available on the platform are available nowhere else in Madagascar.

The website also gather all aspects of open data and contracts transparency in one place preventing the public from the issue of remembering different website names when trying to find data and ask for data that's not available.

Before it was launched, many institutions have used the absence of an Open Data Charter as an excuse to not make open their data and the drafting of it has lingered for 2 years now.

Openstat Madagascar comes from the  initiative of the Civil Society. Through its own data collection project, it shows how possible we can do Open Data without a national Open Data Charter. From this strategy then try to reach National entities to work hand in hand in the direction of Open Government.

- The General Public who need data for their work, this includes
student journalist, journalists, digital entrepreneur

- Civil Society : to monitor their transparency requests.

- Government Officials who use the platform as a data sharing and ease interaction with citizen (G2C and C2G)

From MAIDI :

8 datasets published so far
1 Data reuse competition organized in July 2018.
17 more dataset to be published by December 2019.
5 data stortelling analytics video broadcast until December 2019

From potential partners:
3 national entities expressing their willingness to partner with us in data cleaning and publishing.

It's hard to estimate the data published from the potential partners as it depends on many factors and a certain political engagement level ..

Before its design, one of the most important challenge was the absence of support from Government in terms of data sharing. This forced us to become data provider and built datasets in a creative manner to avoid data we know certainly exist. But connection to key people happened little by little enabling us to partner with local authorities.

1- Access to Information Law
The formulation of an Access to Information Law would validate the right of citizen to access to data and will force the competent authorities to comply with the law.

2- Ensure Open Data Interest
People should be interested in data.
Like a propaganda, the innovation should be made known by all nationally by all means (TV, Radio, notices, .. ) to encourage participation in all regions.

3- Drafting a National Open Data Program & an Open Government Action Plan.
Having a single open data platform to implement a successful open government is necessary for horizontal transformation in public administration. This will determine identify in each ministry the responsible in building datasets, answering citizen request.

4- Putting data availability before profit

The platform is the combination of different open government best practices we have seen online.

From now, it's now unique of its kind in Madagascar. That's why the essential is now to establish partnership with other actors for data sharing to avoid multiple open data platform as per the recommendation of the latest African Data Revolution Report in 2018 but also because a partnership between Government and Civil Society is essential for the Open Government whole process.

The platform can be a better choice for other countries which haven't made any steps toward Open Government at all. Insteading of building different websites for all ministries, it's a cost-saving solution.

- When almost non one is listening to you, prioritise concrete action than research project or endless workshop activities (Sometimes, key persons you want to address won't attend your workshop anyway)

- Instead of asking for the change to happen or denouncing the system (Rude strategy) , Civil Society should start changing the situation and there will always be a way to do so, no matter how strange and unusual it appears or even rejected at first (Soft strategy) as Openness is a sensible subject mostly if you are based in a country with high Corruption Perception Index.

- The purpose of your innovation will only be recognised following your consistency.

Our platform was initially funded by Mozilla Foundation in 2018 and can be now upgraded because of Civicus World Alliance grant as part of the Goalkeepers Youth Accelerator 2019.