Data Sharing: A Look into Data Collaborations in South African Cities
This article was written independently by ODI Research Fellow Majaha Dlamini who works for the South African Cities Network (SACN). The work produced is not representative of ODI policy, research or projects.
Within any new data initiative, the importance of collaboration cannot be overstated. However, often challenges emerge when involved stakeholders find themselves grappling with a lack of clarity regarding the optimal approach to achieve effective collaboration. This blog article introduces some of the barriers to data sharing and the requirements to effectively share data within the city ecosystem. It will then describe the South African Cities Network’s (SACN) use case model they implemented with cities and concludes with the organisation’s recent data strategy.
Data usage and sharing are becoming essential operational tasks for city departments that are under constant pressure to provide their citizens with necessary services while also coping with external shocks like extreme climate events and faltering economies. This means that cities need to draw evidence from disparate data sources, including data produced internally as well as data sourced from national government agencies, academia, civic society, and the private sector. When data is open and shared responsibly with trust and efficiency, it promises several public benefits, including evidence-based policy and decision-making, government transparency, fostering innovation, enhancing services and infrastructure, and crisis response (ACSH, 2022).
However, there are frequent obstacles preventing data from being accessed and shared by the various stakeholders. The opening and sharing of data assume two factors:
First, it assumes the readiness of public agencies for an opening process that tolerates influences, discourses, and exchanges as constructive while welcoming opposing views and inputs. It also assumes that the government is willing to give up some control (Janssen, 2012); sharing data in collaboration means surrendering some control over a critical organisational resource, exposing stakeholders to feeling vulnerable. Often, those engaged in opening up data are unsure of how to resolve these issues cooperatively.
Below are some of the key concerns that become a barrier to opening and sharing data;
● lack of incentives to share data — data providers may not be adequately incentivised to share or provide access to their data whereby they are not able to recoup costs from those that benefit from their data;
● lack of knowledge — the total value of data is yet to be fully understood and unlocked by cities, other data providers and their prospective beneficiaries.
● legal and regulatory risk — there are often perceived or existing risks of breaching data protection, intellectual property rights, or regulatory requirements which may be a hindrance to data sharing.
● Costs of data sharing — costs may be too expensive because of a lack of common foundations, infrastructure, and technologies that are required for data sharing to be cost-effective- data initiatives funding is highly siloed. (CDEI, 2021)
“The lack of effective, responsible data-sharing initiatives points to more foundational challenges in the realm of data” (Hattam, 2023;3).
The second assumption is that the sharing curated data as “open” through data portals and other platforms assumes that cities have the capacity and will to collect, clean, and curate such data with technical and human resources which includes — technical skills, the technology needed and the regulatory frameworks to do such. Effective data sharing requires a coordinated “data infrastructure” that is; data assets, standards and technologies used to curate and improve access to data assets, guidance and policies that inform the use and management of datasets as well as the data infrastructure, organisations that manage the data assets, as well as data communities which are the beneficiaries or users of the data assets. A well-working and coordinated data infrastructure will ensure adherence to the FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) principles amongst the various actors involved. These cities and other stakeholders can be motivated and willing to share data if they see the value and trust their potential collaborators. City governments can also assist in developing that trust, and encourage information sharing, by implementing a clearly defined set of ethics to guide transparent sharing of how stakeholders’ data is used and how it benefits them.
More than ever before, the advancement of the open data movement calls for strategic and purposeful ways to connect the demand for data with its supply to address societal issues and meet institutional objectives.
Partnering through use cases — The SACN approach
Forming data collaborations is often a challenge and can take time to reach maturity — especially when there are diverse stakeholders with varying interests. Hence, there is a need for emerging collaborations to rally behind a common vision such as through identifying cross-cutting challenges among the actors. With this approach, all parties involved need to contribute towards defining the problem as well as identifying the opportunities for the collaboration to be meaningful and symbiotic. At this point, collaborators can then identify applicable use cases that will warrant the sharing of data to facilitate the realisation of the shared vision. Implementing use cases helps clarify the objectives the parties wish to achieve with a clear direction of the data that must be shared and the ways it will be used. When establishing use cases, the collaboration needs to develop a data supply mapping; asking the relevant questions such as the type of data each organisation use or produce. Which data can be shared? Under which conditions? With whom? And what are the challenges and opportunities for sharing such data? This is also in line with responsible data stewardship, which is inclusive and non-rivalrous. Non-rivalrous data means that data can be shared and re-used by various actors simultaneously without affecting or limiting the other stakeholders’ capacity to use it (ODI, 2023), and as such allows a more developed ecosystem to develop around the data.
Use cases are more meaningful in city environments where value must be demonstrated immediately across a large organisation dealing with pressing issues. The South African Cities Network (SACN) – alongside the Open Cities Lab (OCL) — began collaborating and co-creating with cities on issues they were already facing, after realising through experience that merely promoting open data and creating portals was insufficient to immediately instill the culture of data use and sharing. Specific city data use cases were identified to start developing data solutions that would help cities in their operations or to understand their data flows and map their data pipelines. This promoted the involved city departments to start communicating and collaborating as they shared data and resources internally. The use case model can demonstrate meaningful data usage at a small scale with the potential to grow city-wide, particularly with low data maturity.
Through this model of working on various use cases at a city level, the SACN and OCL has, over seven years, worked with eight city champions across five city departments in three cities to produce four city data portals (SCODA, Durban EDGE, City of Ekurhuleni, and the City of Johannesburg) as well as supporting city departments with various custom data tools including mapping data pipelines and providing data training modules. Through our data program, city departments including SACN staff have been upskilled with data training modules to promote data literacy across the departments. More can still be achieved in this regard to build sustainable data capabilities both within the SACN and at the city level.
The SACN’s data strategy
The SACN absorbs all the good lessons from its close collaboration with cities and partners and what has been accomplished thus far. This comes with an acknowledgement that there are still challenges in embedding the culture of utilising data for decision-making in many of our cities.
The SACN recently developed a new data strategy, focusing on the current challenges, opportunities and trends in cities and the broader urban development space. This data strategy aims to improve this by fostering data-driven co-creation of knowledge with cities to transform practice and ensure evidence-based policymaking, as well as by developing systems that provide real-time data insights to drive social innovation through testing and adaptation. These goals align with some of the main business strategy objectives, which are to support cities to become learning and adapting institutions through knowledge co-creation, dissemination, and application.
The data strategy has three focus areas comprising both internal and external outlooks i.e., data reforms within SACN and in cities. These focus areas are;
● Building data capabilities in cities — cities at the leadership level are equipped with data literacy to understand the strategic importance of data to successfully embed a data-led and evidence-based culture throughout the institution.
● Re-imagining the value proposition of the SCODA portal — sourcing relevant and quality data to build data tools to share current and comparable insights about South African cities while upholding the values of open data.
● Building internal data capabilities and mobilising resources — this will include the identification of required skills, data literacy, collaborations, and resources. This includes the organisation treating and managing data as a strategic asset through its entire life cycle for enhancing the SACN’s value offering, organisational effectiveness, and sustainability.
Data collaborations have a chance to succeed when there are clear business or operational incentives among the stakeholders involved. Trust in such networks will also be key to achieving the objectives of the shared vision. Through the strategy implementation plan, the SACN is determined to continue to work with cities to become data-driven institutions in their operations, policymaking and delivery of public services.
Please note: This article was updated by the ODI editors on the 19th March 2024 to add in additional infomration regarding the partnerships described.
