Reaping the Rewards of Data: Towards a National Strategy for Uganda
“Data is the next big thing, allowing countries to transform their economies.”
Dr. Martin Mubangizi, UN Global Pulse Kampala.
By Enock Wanderema
Imagine a thriving, eco-friendly tourism industry, where standardized data revolutionizes the way national tourist agents operate. With effortless precision, they recommend sought-after attractions to visitors, while facilitating effective budget allocation and offering evidence-based ideas to investors. At the same time, other stakeholders would have access to reliable and timely data that could inform their planning and forecasting decisions. This harmonious blend of personalized experiences and data-driven insights develops a landscape of sustainable socio-economic growth.
In a bid to harness the power of data, Uganda is set to become one of the pioneers in Africa by developing a comprehensive National Data Strategy. The Ministry of Information, Communications Technology & National Guidance (Min of ICT&NG) has joined forces with UN Global Pulse Kampala to draft this strategy, which if adopted would optimize national service delivery in benefit of all Ugandans.
“Human beings have always used evidence to make decisions,” said Dr. Martin Mubangizi, head of office at UN Global Pulse Kampala. “But in the modern world, the digital footprints we make knowingly and unknowingly (for example when using our phones) give us a greater volume of data, and we have the machines to analyse it.”
This move towards a data-driven future is part of a nascent global trend. National data strategies are only beginning to gain traction worldwide, with few countries having even conceptualized them. In Africa, Uganda could be only the third country after Nigeria and just recently Senegal, to draft such a strategy.
Under the leadership of Min of ICT&NG, supported by our team, and collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Uganda as leaders of the development process, a multi-stakeholder approach ensures other key players from the government, academia, the private sector and the public are involved.
With this strategy, we aim to initiate data governance in order to streamline the creation, collection, storage, use, protection, access, and sharing of all data irrespective of source, size and current format. In Uganda, this could help to unlock agricultural productivity, transform human capital development, meet the demand for digital services, streamline trade and logistics and manage urbanization and critical resources.
Under the current state, valuable data is held in silos, underutilized for the national good. Let’s say you want to apply for medical insurance. You have to give a lot of detailed personal information. Similarly for opening a bank account, applying for a job or accessing numerous other services. But the National Identification & Registration Authority (NIRA) already has much of this information from when you applied for your national ID. Inasmuch as some service providers have a working integration with NIRA, others do not, and this begs the question: why can’t that existing data be used?
If this data were accessible, service providers could simply request access to the central information instead of requiring individuals to disclose their data over and over again in a tedious and potentially risky process. And the national authorities would hold service providers accountable for the data’s proper use.
The National Data Strategy will cover all data, both digital and non-digital, and of course it will ensure that data use is responsible and ethical.
“In the foundations drafted during our initial stakeholder co-creation workshop for the strategy, ethical principles are already built in,” said Dr. Mubangizi. “Principle One is about integrity and ethics and there are other principles covering protection, security, transparency and trust. It is not in the interests of the government to hurt its citizens. On the contrary, it wants to bring maximum benefit to the people from data.”
According to Ms. Irene Karungi Sekitoleko — Senior ICT Infrastructure Engineer at Min of ICT&NG, the National Data Strategy will facilitate responsible data sharing between government agencies and private organisations, with an expansion to international data collaboration as a means of establishing common standards and ethical guidelines for cross-border data handling in research and public interest efforts.
“The strategy will promote the adoption of ethical data governance frameworks within different sectors. This involves fostering a culture of responsibility and ethical decision-making around data usage,” said Ms. Sekitoleko.
The government has been proactive in exploring the implications of the emerging, so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies since 2019, when the National 4IR Taskforce was established, with the participation of UN Global Pulse Kampala. Supported by Germany’s international development agency, GIZ, and the Hewlett Foundation, the team has produced two road map reports: “Developing Framework for Ethical AI: Road map Options for Uganda” and “Community-Centric Data Exchanges to Unlock Data as a Resource for the Attainment of National and Regional Priorities: Road map for Uganda.”
Following the data exchange road map, stakeholders started having quiet discussions late last year. This April, a co-creation workshop brought together representatives from key national agencies and ministries to lay the strategy’s foundations of vision, mission and guiding principles. Additional phases will follow to further develop and implement the strategy.
But the pressure is on in view of a mid-term review of Uganda’s current five-year National Development Plan (NDP) to 2025/26, which showed only 17% of the country’s goals had been met. The review said the absence of comprehensive data impeded the effective allocation of resources and hindered the implementation of the plan, which aims to raise living standards.
“We can say that our work is urgent now,” said Dr. Mubangizi. “This became apparent when the government wanted to know from the team what progress was being made and what the next steps should be. When we presented the timelines, they advised us to speed things up or the strategy would not inform the development of the fourth NDP — another five-year cycle starting in 2025/26, hence a desired impact on policy.”
Next steps include more one-on-one and group meetings with more stakeholders in order to promote inclusivity for all. Uganda may also reach out to Nigeria and African Union Commission for the benefit of sharing their experience on the processes they went through while developing the National Data Strategy and African Union Data Policy Framework respectively.
When completed, the National Data Strategy is expected to have a substantial impact. It will establish a framework for data sharing, managing data assets, facilitating data-driven decision-making, promoting data-driven innovation and safe and responsible utilization of data. Given that it will be integral to the social and economic transformation of the country, there is a strong emphasis on raising awareness and addressing any questions or concerns from citizens.
To gauge public opinion on data use, UN Global Pulse Kampala sought the views of ordinary Ugandans.
Joshua Philip Wanambwa, a lawyer, expressed serious reservations. “This is pure public surveillance,” he said. “I find it the new totalitarian mode for governments to develop means of housing all data about the citizens in the guise of a national data plan. It should be shunned.”
But others were more positive. For example, Emmanuel Makwasi, a sales manager, saw possibilities for business. “Ease of access to valuable data that would guide decision-making and could bring about industrial creativity. So many skilled people miss out on the chance to exercise brilliance due to limited access to key information,” he said.
To address concerns, the strategy “Will complement the existing data protection law to ensure ethical data use and foster public engagement by seeking input from citizens, civil society organisations, and privacy advocates,” says Ms. Sekitoleko, “Data minimization will be emphasised, only necessary data will be collected for specific purposes and the strategy will employ advanced techniques like anonymization and pseudonymization to secure sensitive information while enabling valuable data analysis.”
Since data sharing will bring huge changes, it is understandable that many people have concerns. But with the Min of ICT&NG and other partners, UN Global Pulse believes the benefits of having a National Data Strategy will far outweigh the worries, and Ugandans should embrace it.
