[MY POST ON THE SCHOOL OF DATA BLOG] CATCH US IF YOU CAN: THE #OpenData PARTY MOVES TO CALABAR!

So what’s the fuss about this #Opendata party in the South South of Nigeria – It will be held in one of the cleanest city in Africa – Calabar, and will be hosted in a state that has the most comforting tourist attraction in West Africa – the Obudu Mountain Resort! If you think there is another like it in the region, please comment below ;) and one other thing about Calabar is the attributes to their women, and just for clarification – Calabar remains the capital city of Cross River State.

Right on time at the popular Mirage Hotel on October 15, 2014 was the Open data party that had 15 participants from different NGOs, citizens and this time we had some government officials – thus making it interesting. Whenever you have these three groups locked on a round table – questions like: why didn’t you make the data available, why didn’t  you reply our FOIA, didn’t we make funding available for you to monitor, what happened to all the international aid you get, all come up, and as a facilitator – you are lost!

With my experience teaching data with NGOs, journalists and citizens, it is still clear that few of the practitioners know where even the little data available is hidden online. “It is appalling that we all here don’t know where the federal government budget is being published” affirmed Onoche Mokwunye. I get this answer often in all my sessions, which makes us conclude at times that the simple skill of finding data (secondary) itself and what their interest was in data, remains important.

In trying to figure out what kind of data they were interested in 40% of the participants were interested in budget data of the country; 30% were interested in contract data  (in essence, the issue of money, and how it’s been used is important), while the remaining 30% was shared amongst election data, environmental data, infrastructure data, and transport data (which seems not to be available). Going forward did they really know where to find this data? KNOW! Well, it will be important to state that the Nigerian government has recently focused on some open data initiatives, even though it is not as if these portals make data available in machine readable format.

One may think, since we wouldn’t know where to find, or how to get the data, analyzing data might be a great challenge, of course NO! This group had great knowledge of diving into excel spreadsheets – maybe I knew only one way of handling some task before, now I learnt two more ways – that was the most interesting part of this data party! So what else, how do we present this datasets using several visualizations and infographic. “I have seen several colourful visualizations (online) that people in our communities cannot relate with, as such we still need to break it down in the language they will understand (offline) – maybe that’s an added task for us” explained Benny from AfterSchool Peer Mentoring Project

Just before the end of the sessions, participants already concluded to have another 2-day Open Data Party,, while they declared having step down training in their own communities. When our Open Data party ends within 8 hours, participants are at times heartbroken! “Are we going to continue tomorrow, I seem to be an information and skill overload in a short time” – mentioned Ndoma Mayor in a phone call with me. Truly, does our party end in 8 hours? What happens to the” party” behind Open data – we always rock the club, after all, we are in Calabar, where the female become goddess at night! And if you want to know where our next open data party will be happening: most definitely – Abuja, No thanks to Connected Development [CODE] and Indigo Trust UK

- See more at: http://schoolofdata.org/2014/10/28/catch-us-if-you-can-the-opendata-party-moves-to-calabar/#sthash.Edn8fXTa.dpuf

THE OPEN DATA DAY IN ABUJA: LIBERATING SERVICE DELIVERY IN THE EDUCATION SECTOR IN NIGERIA

 As building capacity of government officials, CSOs and journalist remains important in the data liberation evangelism, the Follow The Money team focused more on their data expedition class on Open Data Day held at CODE with 28 participants. They include government officials from Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative [NEITI], National Space Research and Development Agency [NASRDA], and the FCT Mass Education Board, participants from the private sector, the media and CSOs. With Oludotun Babayemi, a data enthusiast taking the participant through basics of data design, data cleaning and publishing data, participants were thrilled having insights on how to use data to tell stories “I have been bundle with so much information today, and I appreciate this session, I now know where to get data from and how to use spreadsheet for collaboration” explained an excited Chinyere Opia from HOT FM

Demonstrating the practical session at the Education Hackathon was quite strategic to use in complimenting the practical sessions that went into training participants on sorting, filtering and cleaning data. The Hackathon allowed participants to filter and sort Nigeria data on Education within datasets downloaded from the World Bank project sites, and also update mapping of funds from the budget office on capital expenditures meant for federal education institutions in Nigeria. [LOOK] how one of the participant described #ODDAbuja

In Nigeria, billions of Naira has been spent [through government spending and international aid] on infrastructures on education that, often wouldn't reach the community [Please read achieving the MDG goals in Nigeria] that it was meant for. "Infact we have many challenges, One I will like to say is government providing books and infrastructures that will make the children to learn, and also levies on children which at times they might not be able to afford" says Blessing Hassana [Watch the video], Principal of a secondary school in Nasarawa state [that's a state just 20km away from the capital city, Abuja], what will happen in other states? Perhaps, this says much about why there are still about 10 million out of school children in Nigeria.

With the Education Budget Tracker still being curated for government spending and international aid, the strategy is to focus on how many education projects are operational in these communities. This Education Budget Tracker which allows for education point mapping has huge potential as an effective monitoring and management tool for planning and decision making. It can really help government and funding agencies to know where to focus more on. Some places might need infrastructure, while some its maintenance and others might be training.

In this way, the Ministry of Education and other donor agencies will be able to monitor the impact of its large investments in the education sector. It will also allow transparent tariff settings that reward good performance and highlight inefficiencies. Moreover, it is interesting to know that this tool allows trusted local people to provide information about the education service delivery in their communities using their mobile phones. “Going forward for us, the Follow the Money team is seeking partnership with interested entities to pilot the usage of this tool in one of the states with poor education performance index in northern Nigeria” says Hamzat Lawal while demonstrating how we intend to use the tool to participants.

The Open Data Day evening session started with a brief introduction of the Digital Humanitarian Network and how its members have been using technologies before, during and after emergencies. How CODE intends to engage organizations and communities interested in emergency response across the West African region using technology was highlighted and some government participants were quite interested and keen in how CODE will integrate crisis mapping into their situation awareness room. “It is quite interesting to know that CODE is leading innovative ideas in the region to help in early warning and emergency response, it will be great to showcase this to the National Emergency Management Agency [NEMA]” advised Godstime James of the National Agency for Space Research and Development. 

THE FUTURE OF DISASTER RISK RESPONSE IN THE WAKE OF THE DIGITAL HUMANITARIAN SPACE

Today, not only can you donate cash to support those affected by disasters, you can also donate a few minutes of your time to support the relief efforts on the ground thanks to new humanitarian technologies and platforms orchestrated by a network which brings together a diverse set of individuals from the humanitarian, development, human rights, policy, technology, and academic communities.

This network catalyzes communication and collaboration between a wide range of different communities with the purpose of advancing the study and application of crisis mapping worldwide. Popularly known as the International Conference of Crisis Mappers [ICCM], it once again brought hundreds of humanitarians together at the United Nations Office in Nairobi [UNON] on November 18 – 22, 2013 discussing and plotting ideas for the future of humanitarian response in a conference tagged “Humanitarian Technologies – In and Out of Africa”.

The Crisis Mappers network was launched in October 2009 at the first International Conference on Crisis Mapping (ICCM 2009) in Cleveland, Ohio. These annual conferences facilitate collective engagement and dialogue that helps construct the boundaries of this emergent new discipline. At the conference, participants also brainstorm how to solve real problems and initiate projects that help advance this new field.

Throughout the year, the network facilitates continuing virtual interaction among its members.Participants engage through webcasts, create and browse profiles, email their needs through the dedicated mailing list, write blogs, and share other announcements with the group. “We in the CrisisMappers community have the luxury of having learned a lot about digital humanitarian response since the Haiti Earthquake; we have learned important lessons about data privacy and protection, codes of conduct, the critical information needs of humanitarian organizations and disaster-affected populations, standardizing operating procedures, and so on” said Patrick Meier, the co-founder of the Network, in his keynote welcome address.

This year, the ICCM started with a preconference site visit to SiSi ni Amani and Spatial Collective, which allowed participants to observe first-hand how GIS, mobile technology and communication projects operate in informal settlements, covering a wide range of topics that include governance, civic education and peace building. As learning as become part of the ICCM, the second day was observed at the iHub, where different kinds of training were observed throughout the day. Facilitators from ESRI, Open Street Maps, MapBox, CaerusGeo, Ushahidi took participants through creating maps using the different platforms, and likewise lessons learnt from various initiatives that have been used on the platform. The short messaging service [SMS] and mobile security training stream was anchored by Frontline SMS and Tactical Technology Collective, showing how humanitarians have been deploying the platform to create social change and the security implications. The team from Open Knowledge Foundation [OKF] was able to curate their school of data training with some participants, while the knowledge stream was lead by Internews.

Angela Oduor leading the Mapping Stream session at the iHub 

On November 20, 2013 the main conference started at the UNON, Gigiri with the traditional ICCM Ignite talks showcasing great digital humanitarian works, forward – thinking concept and ideas, with recent research and findings within the network. This was followed by a panel that led the discussion mixed with a reflection on the Westgate Mall attack in September in Nairobi. Philip Ogola of the Red Cross in Kenya confirmed that the social media played a big role in getting situation awareness during crisis; Angela Oduor of Ushahidi, a non government technology outfit in Kenya showcased how the ushahidi platform was used in reaching out to a number of families during the siege. As technology is becoming the future to response, IBM’s Charity Wayua discussed how technology will continue to be deployed in response to siege such as that of the Westgate. At the end of the discussion, it was noted that technology played a big role in creating situation awareness during the Westgate attack, nevertheless co-ordination using this technology still remains a challenge, which in the near future will be tackled.

ICCM 2013 participants at the UNON conference room

As part of the day’s event, the tech fair became a side attraction at the conference room lounge. The fair brought together technology tools and events that have or will shape humanitarian response. Presentations at the fair included the Artificial Intelligence for Disaster Response by the Qatar Computing Research Institute; NGO Aid Map by Interaction; location-based web and mobile software by Azavea; The Walk to Mali project by Earth Hour Nigeria; Mobile data collection in Somalia by mFieldwork; Security issues for everyday digital by Tactical Technology Collective and ESRI showcasing its various GIS platforms. The day went into a closing session with UNOCHA’s Information Management officer – Andrej Verity giving the keynote of the conference, live via Skype from the Philippines. He highlighted the importance of the work of digital humanitarians in helping first responders on the ground, especially since the beginning of the devastating 300km/hr typhoon Yolanda that struck the Philippines. “We have witnessed a paradigm in the way humanitarians all around the world now respond to crisis and disasters since 2009 till this present moment, just this morning, the head of OCHA –Valerie Amos, has been presented verified situation updates of the Philippines, this data, gathered by the various digital humanitarians over the past few weeks will help hasten how our responders on the ground respond to needs of the people in the Philippines” said Andrej

The following day witnessed roundtable sessions about Big data with Anahi Ayala of Internews reiterating that Big data or data becomes useless if the people cannot make use of it, Emmanuel Letouze of the University of California affirmed that Big data has no half life, and remain available while Jon Gosier advised that leveraging on Big data is important especially if an organization can define what is willing to do with it. Another session discussed CrisisMapping for Conflict Management with Sisi ni Amani’s Rachael Brown sharing how they have combined mobile technologies with community engagement in creating conflict situation awareness in Kenya, while Peter Nwamachi from the Kenya’s government steering committee on peace building and conflict management corroborated the importance of collaborating with Sisi ni Amani to respond and build peace among communities. Helena Puig shared lessons learnt from using crisismapping for peace building in several developing countries. Analyzing information from Hard-to-Access areas, the third and last session for the day saw Christophe Billen of the People’s Intelligence challenging the crisismapping community to be cautious of information that is been put up in the public domain, while Nat Walker of the Liberia Early Warning group mentioned the importance of testing different tools and community engagement in providing early warnings to government institutions in Liberia.

The last day of the conference were dedicated to self organized sessions by USAID, Google, Openstreetmap, Humanitarian Innovation Fund; United State, State Department; OKF; ICT for Justice. It witnessed an amalgamation of ideas in improving workflows for different organization, mapping party for the Philippines and Central African Republic, and the importance of Open data, Big data in Crisis mapping.

Participants at the Digital Humanitarian Summit

ICCM over the years have witnessed the emergence of the Digital Humanitarian Network [DHN] which is a network that coordinates different organization that help responds to disasters, and also connect their output in meeting the needs of the traditional first responders, humanitarian organizations on the ground. The DHN had its 2 day summit at the 88mph on Ngong Road, also in Nairobi. Organizations present at the summit included Geeks Without Bounds, GISCorps, Stand By Task Force [SBTF], UNOCHA, Google, Humanitarian Openstreetmap (HOTOSM), Connected Development [CODE], Red Cross Kenya, Crisis Cleanup, Save the Children Kenya and a list of others. The summit allows for a reflection on the activation and workflow of all the DHN and also external admissions into the network. The summit ended with the clear roles for specific workflow for different member organization, the start of local physical meet ups, new volunteer engagement workflows and new mechanisms in admitting prospective members.

In developed and developing countries, people are connecting through technology at an accelerating pace, with technologies that have more computing power than NASA used to send a man to the moon. Leveraging on these technologies, this new space called “CrisisMappers” continue to evolve and increasingly informing the world, thus making connected self reliant communities to affect the delivery of humanitarian aid. Overtime, this space present a fundamental shift in how we can respond to disaster risk management programs and intervene in disaster situations especially in Nigeria, and the West African region that has experienced more disasters in recent times. Traditional disaster management organizations have started embracing these changes and are reorienting their approaches around the essential objective of helping people to help themselves – Our disaster management organizations too should take a cue from this community as it holds great promise for the future, even as the space recognizes its pitfalls and the fact that progress has not always been smooth – a challenge that will be figured out during the ICCM 2014 in the New York City!  

MONITORING AND EVALUATION SYSTEMS: CAN THEY PROMOTE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN WEST AFRICA?

Development programs are expected to deliver results for everyone involved in development. The value of their ideas, advice and action produced is increasingly being gauged by whether it improves lives and for us to affirm, it should be in the public domain. In the 16 countries in West Africa alone, $15 trillion has been spent on aid between 2010 – 2012 with Nigeria and Ghana receiving the most with 42% and 14% respectively (View the dataset Here). Lots of funds you will say – but does this amount to development? Out rightly, only two (Cape Verde and Ghana) out of these 16 countries falls within the Medium Human Development Rank of the Human Development Index 2013, the others keep crawling within the Low Human Development Rank since 2009 that the Index has been published.

Learn About Tableau

Consequently, every program needs the information to answer three vital questions: “what could constitute success in addressing problems?”; “How will we know success when we achieve it”? And can achievements and its processes be shared in the public domain”? Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems can help everyone understand which programs are working, which are not, which can be scaled up, and which could be abandoned, but how it answers the questions in these West African countries remain farfetched!

Recently, during one of the M&E courses I facilitated with Cloneshouse Nigeria, where 80% participants were from government institutions, I asked “will your government be able to publish findings in public domain, or perhaps the breakdown of total spending of your government”? Most of them responded with enthusiasm that they are willing and ready, but their greatest fear might be hindrances coming from the political party, on whose platform they were elected.

Problems of the Country highlighted in Red and Solutions in Green. How True?

Nevertheless, M&E systems can promote transparency and accountability within governments in West Africa. Beneficial spillover effects may also occur from shining a light on results. For aid organizations, how much pressure is put on receiving governments is what we don’t know. One of the participants asked “why do we always receive world bank grants for creation of more health centers, while the once available aren't serving to optimal level, we already have enough health centers to cater for the population of the state”

Learn About Tableau

No doubt, external and internal stakeholders should have a clear sense of status of projects, programs and policies. But, is the ability to demonstrate positive results able to increase popular and political support in West Africa? The truth is that most citizens do not have public confidence in the leadership of their various states. Even, if they publish positive results, citizens believe the outcomes are been doctored to portray “a breath of fresh air” which evaporates at dawn.

Certainly, there are organizational and political costs, and risk associated with implementing result – based M&E systems. There are also crucial costs and risks in not implementing such systems. Suffice it to say that, M&E systems are not new to governments in West Africa, with every department and project having its own M&E unit – how effective are the unit in this region? Permit me to say “I only see their trucks and vehicles, much more than I see their findings in the public domain.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND CREATIVE TECHNOLOGIES: A RECIPE TO #SAVEBAGEGA

In october 2012, when the Follow The Money Team were developing their website, little did they know that the hashtag #SaveBagega was going to reach a staggering 600,000 people from over 100 countries. Consequently, putting more pressure on the government of Nigeria to attend to the urgent need of this ailing community.

Screenshot (Jan 26, 2013) of a hashtracking report on the
 hashtag #SaveBagega

Bagega is a village community in Zamfara, Northern Nigeria, where 1,500 children awaits urgent medical attention for lead poisoning. "All we had in mind was to create a web platform integrated with social media tools, and write reports (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Storify) that could amplify the voice of these helpless communities" said Hamzat Lawal, co - creator of the non-profit group that advocates, tracks, and visualizes aid meant for local communities.

Taking a time travel to a decade ago, the story of Bagega wouldn't have reached the next town to Zamfara. Perhaps, if the same medium was used in 2010, when about 400 children died of thesame lead poisoning, an epidemic that was 'termed the largest in the world" there would not have been much death as reported.

Everyday millions of hash tags are been created on Twitter for different reasons. "We were looking for a hash tag that could easily be related with the ailing community, and since this advocacy was directed to saving these children in Bagega, we decided to create #SaveBagega" affirmed Hamzat

Screenshot (October, 2012) of the Follow the Money Website

Coordinating Tweets could be challenging atimes, as such tweets were directed towards stakeholders that were concerned, no thanks some were already using twitter! the list included president Goodluck Jonathan @goodluckjtweets, he's social media PR wasn't spared - Reno Omokri @renoomokri; also the Senator who sees to matters of ecology and environment - @bukolasaraki Tweets were also directed to organizations that might be interested in children, communities, data, accountability and transparency.

Moreover, On December 6, 2012, a social media campaign was also launched with Human Rights Watch urging people to help write on the official facebook wall of President Goodluck Jonathan "President Jonathan, why won't you release the money you promised in May to clean up poisonous lead in Zamfara? Children are dying and your government's failure to act is putting more children at risk".

What happened afterwards? By the end of January, when Senator Bukola Saraki visited Bagega, he confirmed to the whole world, not through the terrestrial media, but through his twitter handle @bukolasaraki that "from confirmed sources the president has ordered the release of funds for the remediation of Bagega. Perhaps, a win for the use of "co-ordinated" creative technologies. Having said that, what would have happened in cases where the government has no presence on internet or the social media?

I have it on good authority that Mr President has approved the immediate release of funds to re-mediate Bagega.@yusufismail1 @xeenarh
— Sen. Bukola Saraki (@bukolasaraki) January 25, 2013

Recently, I was talking with some colleagues on how the internet not only make information open, but how it has become "a house of history" in 30 years from now, the children of Bagega will be opportune to read what struck their community, some years back, and what their leaders did to save them!

As the quest to ensure transparency and accountability in the funds released to Save Bagega continues, at the last stakeholders meeting on February 12, 2013 in Gusau, the Follow the Money Team asked the Ministry of Mines and State Development (MMSD) on going on how much was made available to them.

How much went to Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel? They said we will get that information before next meeting to #SaveBagega
— Follow The Money (@4lowthemoney) February 12, 2013

."We will get back to you before the next meeting and try to make it public" says the representative of MMSD. All these were posted on their tweet handles for the world to see. On February 26, 2013, the MMSD announced in a press release that 158.3 million was received by their parastatal to encourage safer mining in Zamfara.

As Follow the Money might not be the only available or possible model for advocating for open data and transparency, or tracking and visualizing aid meant for local communities, it can be said that they have been able to document history, and open a new page in how creative technologies can be a tool for saving communities - Maybe in this part of the world!

MAKING DATA OPEN FOR DEVELOPMENT: THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT IN NIGERIA

What could have kept one glued to the Television on the 1^st day of the year? Perhaps, the English Premier League, The Big Bang Theory , or  Grey's Anatomy. None of them! It was Platform, showing on the “Largest television network in Africa” – Nigeria Television Authority, popularly known as NTA on Tuesday, January 1, 2013 at 11 – 12 pm. Interestingly, the guest was Honourable Matthew Omegara, chairman, House on committee on Reform on Government, while the topic – The Freedom of  Information (FOI) Act kept me glued. The Freedom of Information Act, that has been on the front burner since 12 years ago was signed into law by the President, Goodluck Jonathan on May 28, 2011. The House of Representatives passed the Bill on February 24, 2011, while the Senate passed it on March 16, 2011. Both House harmonized it, and was passed by both chambers on May 26, 2011. As this act can deliver Nigeria from the shackles of corruption and accountability, 19 months after it has been signed into law, analysts say there is still a lot that is missing in the Act.

As part of the Committee’s function, they are to engage people from the public and private sectors, the non-government organizations on how best to enforce the act to achieve the goals it was meant for. “It is time for civil society organizations, and the public at large to wake up and start enforcing this Act. Since the bill was passed 2011, we haven’t seen much petitions from the public, especially the media hasn't been up to the task” said the Honourable  The FOI Act has been domesticated in Ekiti State, while in Lagos; it has passed the second reading in the State House of Representative.

The Honourable mentioned that the request for information should be forwarded to MDAs (Ministry Department and Agencies) with respect to the issue at hand. Putting things into perspective, Mr Adamu, from Kunguru village read it in the newspaper that 20 million was allocated to the Ministry of Health a year ago to build a primary healthcare centre in Kunguru. Meanwhile, no primary health care structure is visible at Kunguru. Mr Adamu is meant to verify the authenticity of the news, afterwards forward a letter to the MDA responsible, which in this case, is this Ministry of Health. Honourable Matthew further said, one should get the information requested for in 7 days, and if otherwise, one can proceed to the court of law. Alternatively, “petitions can be forwarded to the Secretary,  Committee on Reform of Government, at the House of Representative” the Honourable member said.

As much as analyst has taken down prospects of the Act, the Honourable seems excited about the FOI Act, he equally stated that states adopting the Act shouldn't be a challenge, since they all adopted the former Official Secret Act, which has been replaced by the recent FOI Act. “By 2014, any MDA that doesn’t set up its FOI Department would not get approval for its budget” confirmed Honourable Matthew Omegara.  As much as the challenges of the FOI Act remains conspicuous – such as information relating to national security, request for information exceeding the mandatory 7 days, and bureaucracy in the MDAs, it shouldn’t make us lose sight of the fact that some positives might come out of it. Some days ago, I was discussing the FOI Act with a Legal Practitioner, and he reiterated the fact that writing to any MDA alone to ask for information could put pressure on them. "Its one step in the right direction and I wouldn't want to say that all request might end up as a court case because most MDA wouldn't want to be involved in legal tussles" he said.

Several times, it has been said that, getting citizens to participate in issues that concern nation building isn't an easy task, owing to the grave loss of public confidence in the government. By the way, one may have asked, where are the CSO’s, media houses, investigative journalist that agitated for the FOI Act? They aren't sleeping, Right to Know has been monitoring the FOI Act, how it is been implemented, and perhaps sensitizing the public; The Media Rights Agenda, has also been holding workshops on the FOI Act for CSOs. What does this mean for Open Data and Open Development in Nigeria? It means Startups like BudgIT and Follow the Money could use this medium in tracking aid flows from the government to communities, at least to an extent, which could have never been achieved before.

The Honorable mentioned how they have started the sensitization in regions of the country with support of UKAid, CIDA and UNDP. Sometimes in December last year, I attended the Ministry of Information sensitization on the FOI Act at the Nicon Luxury. Awareness and education on the FOI Act wouldn’t stop, however stories of how organizations have started enforcing the Act should be told, lessons learnt can then be used in decision making. In all, it was a pleasure, listening to those that make our laws on TV; the truth is that at long term, enforcing the Act can help in making information public, and also tracking funds that flow from the government to communities!