By Leonida Mutuku, Project Lead at the African Open Data Network

Corruption is one of the main governance issues that the OGP movement aims to address. However, it has been noted by OGP that several anti-corruption commitments made by countries do not move the needle and our research has found that oftentimes it’s due to the complex nature of corruption in government. This is more so the case when the commitment aims to create and avail open data to be used in anti-corruption efforts.

Open data has the potential to increase transparency and, therefore, oversight in the delivery of government…

“We cannot define the needs of our collective future based only on a particular point of view. We need a mix between different kinds of cultures and perspectives when we are building standards, or having conversations around data that will affect the rest of the world. ” — Juan Pane, CDS and Lead Data Analyst for ODC and CAF’s Data Taxonomy for Pandemic Preparedness, in an interview with Open Data Charter.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is yet another wake up call on the importance of high quality, interoperable data spaces to make collective decisions for the common good.“ …

The Government of Catalonia’s Directorate General for Transparency and Open Data (DTDO) wanted to open up their data to more sectors in order to help overcome the health-related, employment-related and economic crises that have been caused by COVID-19. In order to achieve this recovery, they realised that they needed reliable, disaggregated, complete data that will enable them to determine what resources the government has and how to tackle the public health crisis. With this aim in mind, the Government of Catalonia, together with the ODC, organised their first COVID-19 Data Meet-Up in September 2020.

The Meetup aimed to define which…

Led by the National Digital Platform (PDN) of the Executive Secretariat of the National Anticorruption System (SESNA), the government mapped 27 datasets that are priority for their country, grouped in three categories: Public Health, Socio-political and Economic needs. One workshop per topic was held between October 27- 29.

Mexico’s learnings and highlights are summarised as follows:

For Public Health

1. Data is necessary for action.
   Having inaccurate data regarding the number of COVID-19 cases prevents the authorities from making decisions and will in turn make any community feel helpless amidst a crisis.
2. Data structures must be dynamic. Governments must think in terms of data structures that allow the dynamism of a pandemic…

By Paul Stone, IWG Co-Chair (2018–2021)

Three years ago, in March 2018, New Zealand signed up to the international Open Data Charter. Doing so gave us another lever to pull on in our advocacy for change, especially as this involved developing a time-bound action plan in the public domain which we then needed to report progress against.

Another benefit to signing up: building our international connections. We had learned that when you are a small team with the job of turning around the culture of an entire government, you have no peers close by to share and learn from, to…

By Nati Carfi, Interim Executive Director, Open Data Charter and Jesse Worker, Senior Associate, World Resources Institute

According to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, 10.3 million people were displaced as a result of climate-related events in the last six months alone. A new study also found that climate change will significantly increase the risk of population displacement. Displacement is just one of the many consequences to our lives. The moment to take action is now.

A few years ago, we introduced the first version of our Open Up Guide for Climate Action, a practical tool developed in…

by Charles Kenny, Ugonma Nwankwo and Megan O’Donnell, the Center for Global Development (CGD).

Government leaders worldwide are trumpeting the need for greater equality in the workplace. That’s the correct thing to do on the grounds of both rights and efficiency, but those leaders might want to start by looking within their own organizations. Today we publish a new policy paper that studies the choices governments have made in their own hiring and compensation decisions. …

by Flor Serale, IWG Co-Chair

The March meeting of the Implementation Working Group (IWG) was held for the first time in Spanish and at a different time, in line with the objectives of the 2021 Action Plan to build a diverse space. The theme of the session was data openness for climate justice, and the challenges of opening and using public climate change data.

Fostering collaboration to open up climate change data

The Ministry of Environment of the Government of Uruguay designed its climate change policy in 2015, while in 2017 it generated its first National Determined Contribution (NDC) to report to the United Nations system. At the…