I woke up this morning at 4am US West Coast time because I went to bed very early in anticipation of some early morning phone calls to East Africa.
Checking my twitter stream I saw that the Tanzania Government had launched a Open Data website initiative (Kiswahili) along the same lines as guided and launched in New York recently by US President’s Obama and State Department under the Open Government Partnership of which a number of African countries inc. Tanzania had signed on.
The general consensus so far from the twitterverse has been negative. The complaints on twitter started mounting and I gladly participated. Where is the data? The SMS no. set up does not work. The site was loading slow or not at all for a lot of people.
But as a critic I am also keen to understand how this may have happened but also having dealt with African Governments, I have some theories of how we could have got to this situation- I hope it forms some sort of “How not to” discussion and lead to progress to improve the effort. I am a concerned Tanzanian and global citizen.
Where is the leadership and did they listen on stakeholder consultation?:
My first question would be who was put in charge to build this and did the Government actually talk to all the stakeholders. There are plenty of techies around on the ground and abroad to consult (after all the idea came from the west, NOT from within).
Some organizations I was communicating on twitter actually are on the ground building their own data transparency services are the ones who actually tipped me off. The main one that the Government clearly talked to was Twaweza lead by Rakesh Rajani who actually prepared a pretty great presentation to the Tanzania Cabinet.
Some of the twitter conversations stated that they are still in listening mode and all ideas and suggestions are welcome- if so, they should communicate this more clearly on the website.
In any case if effective consultation was done, they would know what is the “minimum viable product” for launching such an initiative.
No benchmarking:
An excuse could be “we don’t know what we are doing, we are just launching this”. I would fire back and say, there are plenty of examples out there in the west and even in East Africa. Kenya’s Open Data initiative was launched with huge fanfare a few months ago and by many respects, set a global example. My friends here in Silicon Valley were shocked. Take a cue from your neighbor and try match it. The current site just does not even come close and comparisons will always be drawn by the local, regional and global community.
Adequate planning and Capacity:
This is where I could be wrong. Did a real plan get put in place to launch this? Or was it just thrown together in haste on orders from up above? On one hand, as a supporter of lean startup principles, its great to launch something rough, but as I mentioned in the benchmarking- there has to be a “minimum viable product” for something like this- and putting up a webpage and some wording and videos is not a viable minimum. I would have been happy with at least one dataset. More to the point, was there the right skillset or “capacity” allocated to work on this to do a proper implementation?
Culturally is Tanzania Ready?
This is a big one… This may come as something totally radical to the Government and even the stakeholders and are just completely not really prepared to open up the closet… In that case it’s just embarrassing to put out a website like this with no datasets- it actually lowers the credibility and seriousness of the Government more than if they had not even launched the website in the first place.
I could be wrong though- and I would like to open up a dialogue here for those who might have been involved in this project to find out more about it and any future plans.
I am pretty passionate about open data, as I wrote in a previous post and I believe it can help Africa unleash innovation and welcome more of such efforts but they should be done properly.
My suggestions are though are actually 2 fold:
- Get a twitter account and other social media presence and have an authentic conversations to take any suggestions and concerns (in the meantime- may want to get that SMS no. working also)
- Shock people and show you mean business by starting with a very serious data set that cuts right into the real issues into why open data is important. I would start with opening up Government petty cash spending on “per diems” related to travel and entertainment. I believe there is much waste here and it is not so much the money, but the time away from office of officials flying to Washington, Seattle, Geneva and other far flung destinations- it takes away valuable leadership capacity within the country.
Here is a great post on Vijanaforum that originates from Daraja that outlines in more depth about the process for Tanzanians and others interested to learn
An interesting perspective, and I understand your frustration, but I think you’re being a little unfair.
In comparing the opengov.go.tz (or data.go.tz) to opendata.go.ke and data.gov you’re not comparing like with like. The Kenyan and US sites are (very impressive) collections of datasets, whereas the Tanzanian site is designed at this stage as a space for consultation and discussion. Hopefully it will grow into something more like its Kenyan and US cousins over time, and I believe there are elements in the Tanzanian government that would like it to become so, but at the moment its not pretending to be a site for sharing data.
I realise that even the consultation features are not yet working, and it is a shame that whoever is developing it decide to make it public before it is ready. But I believe this was simply a mistake, based on the assumption that if the site hadn’t been officially launched and wasn’t being promoted, linked to, etc., then nobody would know where to find it. An easy mistake to make, though of course it would have been better if they hadn’t made it. Let’s hope its corrected very soon – by making the site work.
As a fellow open government supporter, I think we would strategically be better off focussing on using this opportunity (the OGP, not the website) to promote open government ideas. I love the idea on per diems, and I think an open data portal for Tanzania and a freedom of information law would be very powerful ways of making a difference in Tanzania. Let’s say so, as we have a rare chance of making such things happen.
PS – Thanks for linking to the VijanaForum (not the same as Vijana.fm) post, though it actually originated on my blog – blog.daraja.org and was later copied and pasted onto VijanaForum.
Thanks Ben, I will update the links and credit Darajatz. What I wanted out of this post is exactly what you are conveying- what is actually happening. In that case it is more a lesson in knowing what to release and when from a Government body like Tanzania. It is unacceptable what happened- imagine if a similar blunder happened in a western country? Or a more serious matter.
That being said, my basic criticism remains. 1) if it’s consultation phase- make it very clear and make it easy to contact the team so they are aware. When mistakes happen it makes it easy to direct constructive criticism and advise… 2) Opendata.gov means exactly that- show us some data… No data is no data… Until I see the data it is not Opendata.gov or is it just a website anyone can build- if I am being unfair, at least admit that the Tanzanian Govt has no clue- comparisons to Kenya are totally valid, if not then compare to who? We must demand excellence atleast in the regional sense in everything we do or we will remain in our situation- being an island and not benchmarking is to bury your head in the sand and admit the rest of the world matters nothing and then complain and ask for assistance from these very people. In short, if you want to do Opendata.gov, atleast aim for the bare minimum, not an embarrassment.
Thanks Mbwana.
I think we’re basically on the same page, though I’m giving the government a little more credit, looking for the positives and understanding the negatives.
Very much so. I tell it like it is… Call me the “Simon Cowell” of data.gov if you must, but the bar I expect to be crossed is very low.
The reason the site might have loaded slow for people in SF, is that the site is hosted inside Tanzania. This might be frustrating for people off the continent, but its very commendable.
Internet in East-Africa is very slow and expensive, one of the causes being the charges of the international fiber cables. Hosting Tanzanian data in Tanzania therefor makes a lot of sense, for people in Tanzania. Which should be the main target group of this specific website.
Hi Reinier- thanks for your comment.
The answer is more along the lines of poor architecture. I can point you to many Tanzanian government websites that load just fine from anywhere in the world whether they are hosted onshore or not should be a factor considered in launching such a serious website.
The slow functionality is the issue I least complained about- broken features and the manner of how the site was launched is the more worrying aspect. As I mentioned in the post- we should demand global excellence in everything we do and in today’s age when a Government launches such an effort it should expect serious global scrutiny – you can’t hide on the internet, and the expectation level from startups, yet alone Governments is ever higher- we are not in 1995 it is almost 2012.
Ben and Mbwana, I’m confused. Ben: you say you that the site is designed for “consultation and discussion”. Fair enough, that is what it appears to be. But who is consulting and managing the discussion. Where do submissions go? What happens to them? Who is in charge? None of this is clear or particularly “open”.
On the other hand, Rakesh Rajani, head of Twaweza and member or the OGP Steering Committee and who has met with the President on this says that the site url has been “parked” ready to be a repository for data a la Kenya.
Who is right?
These are important questions. As you know, there have been various social media initiatives associated with Ikulu that have been less than successful and less than transparent. Viz JK’s twitter account for the election, the salva rweyemamu fiasco and ikulumawasiliano blog entries being confused with michuzi entries. It is a mess and makes Tanzania look bad. So given the histiory, people are rightly concerned.
It’s a mess.
It comes down to one thing and my primary concern that I called out. Leadership. The vision was handed down from Obama and in turn by Kikwete- but who is leading the effort?
Right now we are just trying understand and give feedback, we just don’t know to turn to.
Here’s some background and my take
At the request of Ikulu, I’ve had three high level briefing meetings with a) President plus key advisers, b) cabinet, and c) PSs. I also briefed the consultation with non state actors a few days back that Ben Taylor blogged on. I don’t know many details, but here’s my best guess of what’s going. The people implementing the consultations are doing so at instructions of their higher ups, but they themselves may not be fully in the picture or share the full ethos of what’s up. Everything is pretty fast paced compared to normal govt pace, and lots of other things are going on at same time involving the same people. So in the process a combination of old habits, circumstances, lack of clarity about good standards, errors, etc have made consultation process be far from ideal. I could bemoan that fact, but I choose to give it benefit of doubt for now, and concentrate energy on how to get best out of the opportunity.
I’m trying to do two things. First, see if civil society, indeoendent actors can come up with inputs an ideas for OGP plan outside of governance process, summarize and compile them, and get the principals in govt in charge of this process (Minister Chikawe and CS Luhanjo) to take it into account. Second, to emphasis to govt that it is crucial to make the consultation/input process reliable and to publish the inputs received. Plus not to constrain the inputs process like they seemed to do at the last New Africa Hotel consult.
Will this work? I don’t know, but given the potential very large benefits if it did, I’m going to place my bets and energy on being pragmatic and try to nudge it to work better. Time will tell whether it was worth the effort.
Thanks Mbwana, just three days ago I wrote to Zanzibar authority of what look like a Zanzibar joke on eGovernment Agenda, recently one Mohammed Juma Ame – Director of Zanzibar ID inform press and came out on Daily News (03 November 2011) that Zanzibar will switch to eGovernment by April 2012. Then I ask myself that eGovernment will be for who. as no consultation no what, most of the citizen at all level do not even touch internet device including computer not even owned. the so called Technical Team to lead us to that point composed by IT illiterates, while we got so many PhD and Masters holders in IT and networking, but not involved. Personal desire takes the role instead of professional, at that point I remember prof. Richard Heeks of University of Manchester in2002 when he wrote “eGovernment in Africa : Promise and Practice” is exactly what happening in Zanzibar.
Read more : https://docs.google.com/open?id=1x4dEIs-8NcbN91VIs41AOsgeeCR-JQfncT1T9zzYv2aNe1l4MIer5ht75pdc