Data remains Gold for Africa but hidden- experts says
Statisticians today celebrate the International statistics day, but some experts in the field have raised concerns over data that lies dormant while at the same time there is high potential of using the information to transform African lives.
These are some of the concerns highlighted at the Transform Africa Summit 2015, in Kigali during the second day session on “New black gold†– Harnessing Africa Data Revolution.
Dr. Yussuf Murangwa, the director general of the National Institute of Statistics Rwanda (NISR) says there are three kinds of data. But there is data that has not been explored, apart from the basic and traditional data, there is official data, and daily statistics of people work daily which is not fully captured and analyzed
“Statistics is not rocket science and it is a myth that needs to be erased from people’s minds. There is data there but people are unwilling to release it due to unfounded fear in them. But if data is released it can be very important and revolutionize our business models†Murangwa said.
Open data will empower governments and private sector. When we know the information and statistics we can know where to intervene. It is a win-win situation and there is no need to hide data. We need openness on data.
To this, Dr. Murangwa said that the solution is that data should have regulation and mechanism to follow through, for example agreements; otherwise a lot of people can be abused in the process of releasing data to anyone.
Antoinette Edodo from Sovereign Art Foundation (SAF) argues that should strict legislation and regulation of data being given out by the governments and individuals , because it ties the person down if someone has all the data about people- for example the time travel in and out and a country, health conditions, family and loan history and others.
“We need to use that information in a good way and government have to do the part of protecting its people†she said.
Dozie Ezigbalike from Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) says that in the long run, Africa needs to design a new model of how to put this existing data into real business models which can be used to transform economies especially in Africa where there is a lot of data that is untapped.
