Investors need actionable info: why open data is so important for Africa’s future
Last week I met European investors interested in Kenya’s agro-processing industry, with an emphasis on the fruit sub-sector. Their aim is to add value locally and export concentrates abroad.
Uninformed opinions are dangerous. So, to prepare for the meeting, I searched for information to help me speak knowledgeably about my country as an investment location. I could not find a single authoritative source to give me the information I needed. The snippets of information I was able to find, from multiple sources, did little to prepare me for the questions I would face.
And, as feared, after exchanging some pleasantries, the first two questions from the investors immediately threw me off balance:
Investor: Do you have a fruit map in Kenya?
No, I responded.
Investor: OK, can you then estimate the production quantity of fruit by region in Kenya?
Eiy! I was getting hot, despite it being a breezy evening. I gathered myself and told them that this type of data is not readily available … but that the Kenya Open Data Initiative (KODI) and other similar initiatives are building robust open datasets that would help investors determine where to spend their money.
After the meeting, I decided to pose the same questions to a number of other Kenyan experts. Their answers ranged from “I don’t know” to sweeping statements like “millions of tonnes”.
The annual economic survey, which should have helped provide clarity, focuses on common food crops such as maize and cash crops such as tea … but even with then, the data is hardly consistent. The only fruit crop data in the survey is an aggregated number that is not useful to either investors or development planners.
The omission of actionable granular data in the economic survey, and the ignorance amongst the experts I reached out to, could perhaps have been forgiven in the past century, but we really have no excuse in the 21st century and the ‘Africa Rising’ era. How are we supposed to allocate resources properly to support our agri-economies? And, what investor will risk their money if there is no credible data available?
We really have no excuse, because the capacity to gather the data is in place. In fact, the District Development Plans used to collate this kind of data. The data is probably trapped somewhere, on a dusty bookshelf in some ministry office. The real problem is that so little of our country’s research, production, and trade data is easily accessible in this age of the Internet. So, for example, we know that in Kenya mangoes come from the coastal and eastern regions … but who outside of a few government researchers know whether the volumes justify an investment in either of these regions?
Boosting resources like KODI could change our economic fortunes, by helping improve our planning and helping investors make wise decisions.
But it is not just officialdom and investors who would benefit. As we have seen in neighbouring Uganda and elsewhere, farmers themselves can benefit from better data about what crops are being planted where, when, and in what quantities. By sharing this data, along with data about how to improve crop yields and how to treat crop diseases, farmers earn greater returns on both the local and international markets.
Perhaps the single most disheartening piece of data is that not a single African country is currently in the top 10 largest fruit producing countries list, despite our continent boasting an abundance of wild indigenous fruit and massive tracts of the best environments for fruit farming in the world. Could something as simple as digitising and publishing data help change this?
Anyone who knows me, knows that I believe that Africa’s future competitiveness lies in data. It is crucial for every African country to build a culture of curiosity, numbers and platforms to share the data freely. If we need trade, employment and wealth creation, we must develop open data as a strategy for greater visibility and demonstrate that we know the global dynamics of trade.
Today is the International Open Data Day. Let’s remember what Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State, said, “Experts often possess more data than judgment.”
Bitange Ndemo is an associate professor at the University of Nairobi’s Business School. He previously served as Permanent Secretary of Kenya’s Ministry of Information and Communication between 2005 and 2013, and is credited with kickstarting the country’s Open Data Initiative, as well as Code for Kenya. Ndemo is an advisor to the Better Than Cash Alliance, and serves on the Code for Africa federation’s continental Advisory Council.
Read more about what the Code for Africa federation is doing on #OpenDataDay:
