Data for Africa: Open data portals listed and reviewed
By: Kate Thompson Davy
Tags: Civic Technology, Open Data, South Africa, Civictech, Features

Data for Africa: Open data portals listed and reviewed

Tool Review

What open data is out there? Where do you find it and what can you do with it? We review ten South African and African open data portals.

Johannesburg Train Station From Randlords by Paul Saad (Creative Commons)

The Open Government Declaration, signed by 11 African states from 2011, states that ‘people all around the world are demanding more openness in government’. The African Development Bank says on its open data portal that “reliable data constitutes the single most convincing way of getting the people involved in what their leaders and institutions are doing.”

Open data is data that can be freely used and shared by anyone. The theory is that more open data means more transparency, and more transparency means a more accountable and better government. In Africa, some governments have committed to making their data open. But the Open Data Barometer puts African countries at the bottom of their rankings.

In many cases, the issue isn’t just openness — it’s that the data hasn’t been collected in the first place. Questions have also been raised about whether increased transparency is likely to lead to more accountability without more government commitment. As you can see from our review below, looking at what has been done so far, many of the open data portals are still difficult to navigate, especially on mobile phones which is how most people get online. As one African Union report puts it, we still need a data revolution in Africa.

So what South African and African open data is out there? How useful is it and where do you find it? This list is a work in progress. Please contribute and comment: What portals do you use or run? What portals do you “rate”? And which ones are just not worth the pixels/bandwidth? How have you used, or tried to use, open data?

Please share your experience and ideas in the comments below, directly via email to civictech@journalism.co.za , or join the discussions on our Facebook page.

Below you’ll find seven South African and three international open data portals: Municipal Money, Municipal Finance Data, Municipal Barometer, Wazimap, City of Cape Town Open Data Portal, South Africa National Data Portal, The NRF’s SA Data Archive, OpenAFRICA, DataBank from the WorldBank, and African Development Bank Groups’ Open Data for African portal

South Africa

1. Municipal Money

Municipal Money is National Treasury project that takes municipal finance data and makes it available to the public in an accessible way. The stated goal of the portal is to take complex and extensive spending and budget information, to crunch and reformat it (in graphical ways) so it doesn’t require an economics or statistics degree to interpret, and to let users drill down to information at the individual municipal level.

What data is there?

All the data on the portal is reported information, submitted to National Treasury by individual municipalities. Generally you can access information on an area’s audit status, income sources, cash balance, and spending (by category) including wasteful expenditure, as well as a “resources” section. This includes links to data sources such as financial reports in PDF and Excel format. Depending on which municipality you look at you may find missing information which as the site makes clear may be an indication that the municipality failed to provide data to the Treasury (which is informative in itself).

What can you do with it?

Find your municipality, or choose one of interest, to see summarised information with supporting graphs and graphical ratings (using smiley and unhappy faces, and a red, orange and green colouring key). Each metric provides the year(s) of data available, an explanation of the metric and outgoing links.

Ease of use

The site is simple and well designed, and the “traffic light” colour code aids understanding. The “Did you know” boxes and linked explanations will help orientate new data users. At the time of visiting (May 2017) the location-detection appeared to be non-functioning, but search was simple and accurate. Viewed on a low-end Android smartphone*, the site is generally mobile- friendly with only minor blips in the layout of some graph keys.

2. Municipal Finance Data

The Municipal Money tool (above) draws its raw data from this site, the Municipal Money API website. Here users can access the original datasets that Municipal Money is built on.

What data is there?

There are 12 datasets to access, including audit reports, cash flow and capital acquisition. The site promises four years of data, covering 278 municipalities.

What can you do with it?

Drill down to specific months and years, within a category or dataset, and download the raw data.

Ease of use

The interface is a lot less user-friendly, in comparison to Municipal Money, and is clearly not aimed at a “general” audience. That isn’t to say that it is a big mess (it isn’t your typical government department website) but there has been a lot less attention paid to supporting a non-expert user-experience. The site is clear and readable, but fails the mobile test with many of the dataset blocks breaking or displaying run-over text. Once you click through to the datasets themselves, it’s best to rotate your screen for landscape viewing — or, better yet, if you have access to a PC, give up and access it there.

3. Municipal Barometer

Municipal Barometer was developed by the South African Local Government Association (SALGA). It publishes economic, social and governmental performance data down to a ward level. It’s intended audiences are both general interested individuals and municipal staff who can access the information for informed planning purposes.

What data is there?

There are three “tools”: the data bank, a benchmarking tool, and reporting tool. Information in the data bank is divided by year and area, and includes demographics, financial info, access to social and basic services, and “economic growth and development”, each with their own subcategories. The data itself is largely drawn from the last available census, currently, 2011.

What can you do with it?

Once you’ve made your various selections (and you can select multiple categories), you’ll end up at a page that lets you see the data in graph or table format on screen, or download it in PDF and Excel spreadsheet formats.

Ease of use

There is a lot of clicking involved in the data bank section of the site (four steps, each with their own choices) and some users are likely to find that click-path confusing. Two steps and three submenus in I caught myself wondering “where was I going with this again?”. That means it’s a lot of work for a merely interested citizen, but a good resource for a more confident data spelunker. The mobile experience on the other hand is a complete write-off.

4. Wazimap

Wazimap was developed by Media Monitoring Africa with Code for South Africa (now OpenUp), and takes census and election data and links it to a map of South Africa. You can use the clickable map interface or search for a specific area to access the information — at a provincial, city and even ward level.

What data is there?

Wazimap incorporates census 2011 data from Stats SA and election data (national 2014 and municipal 2016) from the IEC. You’ll be able to see how votes were split between parties, as well as demographic and financial information. The census data has some quite revealing insights with metrics such as language, citizenship and the very specific and granular, like “head of household” information or household goods ownership (TV, radio, fridge, etc).

What can you do with it?

With each metric, you can click to see the data on which the graph is based (in table form) and get a handy embed link, so you can slot it into your journalistic stories or external websites as needed. This is why it’s proved such a popular tool with local journalists already.

Ease of use

The site is simple and intuitive, and the graphs simply presented. The mobile experience is smooth and clear — easy to read numbers and responsive graphs even in portrait orientation.

5. City of Cape Town Open Data Portal

In line with the city’s open data policy, to support transparency, the City of Cape Town has created an open data portal for city information.

What data is there?

There are 92 data sets and counting, including information on land administration (aerial photographs), spatial planning, health, finance, and even call centre statistics.

What can you do with it?

Browse and download images, documents and spreadsheets, or visit the “mini-sites” that are built off the back of this data.

Ease of use

The site is surprisingly active and deep, and the three lists on the front page (recently uploaded, most popular and featured sites) a pretty useful navigation “extra” (in a prompting kind of way). It’s not the most modern or attractive site ever but it is clear and “navigable”. A pleasant surprise is that it doesn’t all fall apart when accessed via mobile, despite its reliance on table-format in the data set area. But it can tend towards a bit of a “data dump”, with most data for download only, rather than viewing on the site.

6. South Africa National Data Portal

A project of the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), the South African National Data Portal is part of the country’s commitment to the Open Government Partnership — along with the principles of transparency and accountability.

What data is there?

It hosts departmental data and links to external data sources. There are 409 data sets on offer, with download links, of varying usefulness. For example, if you want to see the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s PDF list of South African varietal seed crops (from December 2013), then you’ve come to the right spot. Having said that, the Departments of Energy, Environmental Affairs, Higher Education and Labour have all contributed data sets.

What can you do with it?

Download a huge variety of official information from an official government source.

Ease of use

The front page presents 409 datasets grouped into ten themes, such as Human Settlements and Economy and Employment — which is great in theory. But click on any theme and you get zero datasets. This leaves you with the option of clicking the “See all 409 datasets” and browsing or searching if you know the name of the set you want. The presentation format is at least a clean and simple table, with document name, theme, file type, and uploaded date rows. The site is pretty responsive, but best viewed in landscape on a mobile.

7. The NRF’s SA Data Archive

The National Research Foundation’s South African Data Archive (SADA) proclaims to act as “a broker between a range of data providers … and the research community”, with a view to preserving info for future use and safeguarding data.

What data is there?

The site promises data sets on labour and business, political studies, social studies and surveys and censuses, but currently all the links to the data sets are broken (as are many other links on the site). We reached out to the NRF and they promised that the site was still operational, but said they were “experiencing problems with our IT”, and promised this would be “resolved soon”.

What can you do with it?

Nothing right now, but the potential for a data archive that pools the huge amount of research that falls under the NRF banner is exciting. So, fingers crossed that they can exorcise their IT demons soon.

Ease of use

Not currently available to review.

Africa

8. OpenAFRICA

openAFRICA is volunteer-drive, run by Code for Africa, and says it “aims to be largest independent repository of open data on the African continent”. It is a private, not-for-profit repository of data collated (or “liberated”) from public sources.

What data is there?

A large variety — 2544 data sets including from Western Cape dam levels, local airport locations, World Bank data, a Sustainable Development Goal baseline survey, and greenhouse gas mitigation strategy information.

What can you do with it?

Users can access and download data sets, and even upload their own to store it or make it widely accessible. They also have social sharing buttons on source pages, so you can get the word out.

Ease of use

It’s a pleasure to use on a computer, with a strong uncluttered interface. At first glance, I thought the mobile experience would be just as good. The front page is responsive, but it all falls over though once you search or browse the datasets — with none of the table text displaying.

9. DataBank from the WorldBank

A searchable repository of WorldBank data, gathered from hundreds of countries and 55 databases.

What data is there?

This is probably the world’s largest collection of comparable country-level economic and development data with 63 databases covering 264 countries**, and accessible in 1504 data series dating back 57 years. Of course, not all areas will have all years, or the same availability of metrics, but there is a tonne to peruse, including data on health, poverty, inequality, jobs, economics, governance and ease of doing business information. Its often the case that African data is a lot less current than that from other countries in the global south, an indication of the continental challenges faced by national statistical offices and other data collection agencies.

What can you do with it?

Generate charts, tables, and time-linked data, create reports, visualisations and shareable graphics from a wide variety of metrics and categories, with mapping and pivot table-like functionality added in.

Ease of use

The interface screams “serious” — wordy, with reams of blue and grey text, clickable list items, and next-to-no images (you can make your own data chats and maps once you get in that far). It promises to be tablet-friendly, but is not responsive on a regular mobile phone screen.

10. African Development Bank Groups’ Open Data for African portal

This platform hosts data from 54 African countries with a strong focus on developmental matters and socio-economic statistics.

What data is there?

Data is gathered from partners and their own sources, and is reported at country and regional levels. Clicking on a country link will open a country-specific subpage of the portal with some top-level stats, like unemployment and GDP figures. Dig into the catalogue page to find themed data, demographics, health statistics, gender splits, birth rates, and so on.

What can you do with it?

Users can see, compare, and analyse data, create visualisations, and share outputs on a wide range of data. Search for country-specific info or browse data catalogues per country.

Ease of use

The site navigation is a bit lacking, and it’s not immediately clear if there is a way to do cross-country comparisons on the site. The visualisation options though are a nice touch. The site is not mobile-responsive, but the design in clear and simple enough that if you are prepared to do a lot of zooming in and out, mobile users should still be able to get value from their visit. Best viewed on a laptop or desktop, though, if you have one.

*For mobile-friendliness assessment, the same low to mid range market Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo Plus device was used to access all of the sites.

** Yes, there are not 264 countries in the world. We suspect this number may include historical data (countries that have changed) and possibly duplicates. We have reached out for clarity and will update when/if we hear back.