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Join the Open Data Movement

Welcome to Hack/Hackers Sierra Leone, January edition. This month as Open Governance Fellows, our goal is to share with journalists, students and the general public how to access open data and use this data in reporting, research or even just promoting general awareness of national and global issues using data driven evidence.


Given that the Media are key partners in any country’s development, January’s Hack/Hacker’s session opened with sharing the definition of media, various media channels and the differences between ‘Traditional’ and ‘New media’ . We also introduced participants to the concept of ‘Open Data’.

Increasing access to the internet across the world continues to impact information sharing. With wider access to the internet and social media, you would most likely have used Open Data. Have you ever checked the weather forecast on your phone? If yes, you have used Open Data.

Open data is data that can be freely used, re-used and redistributed by anyone — subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and share alike. The data must be re-usable, meaning they can be downloaded in open formats and read by software, and users have a legal right to re-use it. (Source: Open Data Handbook).

When data are made widely available and easy to use, the benefits can be significant- streamlining government services and stimulate economic opportunities; encouraging innovation and improve public safety and reduce poverty etc. However, accessing these government data were very difficult, if they were available at all.

Today, more than 250 governments at national, sub-national and city levels; almost 50 developed and developing countries; and entities such as the World Bank and United Nations have launched Open Data initiatives — and more are launched every year. As the benefits of Open Data impact broader populations and additional useful options are discovered, governments and institutions worldwide are eager to launch new or expand existing Open Data programs.

Sierra Leone is one of the countries that have joined the Open Data movement. The Open Data Registry of Sierra Leone allows the public to view and comment on national data shared by the government. You can access the open data portal for Sierra Leone via: http://opendatasl.gov.sl/ This portal has data across various sectors as seen in the figure below.


More interestingly, you should note that being just a few weeks from the country’s next general elections, Sierra Leone’s open data portal now has data related to the elections process.

For access to Open Data across the world, visit the World Bank’s Open Data Portal. There is data on several countries and many more indicators with useful graphical representations! See the story the data tells. Use it to sensitise others and engage with policy makers and other service providers


A lot of the participants were very interested in accessing open data and how we can get more entities to contribute data to the open data portal in Sierra Leone. Look out for my post on ‘Visualization of Pay No Bribe Reports in Sierra Leone’. Let’s continue to ‘Leverage on Technology’.

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