Data Revolution in Africa.
The Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, the Governments of Kenya and Sierra Leone, and Safaricom hosted ‘Data for Development in Africa’ 29–30 June 2017, in collaboration with the African Development Bank, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, and the Governments of Ghana, Senegal, and Tanzania. African countries made commitments in the fields of: business, agriculture, civil registration, health, migration, and data capacity.
The main aim was and is to start up the use of readily available data to monitor progress as a continent, especially in resource planning. This calls for systems that will enable accurate and timely data for decision making. The systems in reference are, actually, partnerships between policy makers and citizens, government, academia and private sector. African approach to data (and in this case Big Data) seem to be different from the “normal” approach. And that is, involving human insights that miss from Big Data.
Thick Data as described by Tricia Wang is
precious data from humans that cannot be quantified. Emotions and interactions. This precious data builds an understanding to human narrative.
As such, citizens are at the center of data for sustainable development. Integration of Big Data and Thick Data is like none seen before. Big data leverages the best of machine intelligence while Thick data leverages the context lost and best of human intelligence.
Therefore, there is a need for User researchers who can support Big Data systems.
“Relying on Big Data alone increases the chances we will miss something while giving us the illusion we know everything”
Our responsibility in using Big Data will not stop at making sense of the data for sustainable development, but will also include understanding the human sense behind the data.
With the advent of data (Big Data) in Africa, one cannot help but be wary of privacy and privacy laws. Most African countries have not adopted any Internet or Data Privacy laws. For a continent that has seen its fair share of tyrants and ‘strong men’, it would be careless to proceed with the data agenda without strong legal frameworks that guide on the use of data and privacy.
There is a growing notion that only those who challenge and are dissident to authority have something to hide. A notion that is slowly infringing on the right to privacy. Policy makers must arm twist this notion to avoid unintended consequences. Data is meant to shape Africa into a developed world, nothing less.
A good example of ‘unintended consequences’ of data is the use of the same by Nazi Germany to target people during World War 2. Certainly, Africa has had civil wars to deal with before and it is such a thing that we hope data will help us move past.
“Law is always behind when it comes to innovation”
a popular comment which might be true but still not an excuse for failing to guard the data we collect from our citizens. The need to conceive rights to data privacy is paramount in the process of Data for Sustainable Development.
It is my hope that self-realization and active seeking of solutions to the problems Africans face will be the end result of the data revolution in Africa.
