By Tricia Govindasamy

As a key player in the civic tech industry and the largest data lab in Africa, Code for Africa (CfA) is dedicated to remaining a data champion on the continent. And to ensure we are working towards a fairer data future, we’ve joined the Data Values Campaign, managed by Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. This initiative is working to challenge power structures in data to ensure that we all reap the benefits it brings.

In 2021, the Data Values Project was launched to address this need and determine the principles that should guide data for development in the future. The result is a white paper and the #DataValues Manifesto.

The manifesto comprises five guiding principles: supporting people to shape how they are represented in data, investing in public participation for accountability, democratising data skills for greater equality, creating cultures of transparency, data sharing and use, and funding open and responsive data systems so that all people share in the benefits of data.

To promote these principles within our organisation, we recently held a skill share session for our teams involved in data-driven projects, including Knowledge, sensors.AFRICA, PesaCheck, iLAB and CivicSignal teams. As data plays a crucial role in their work, this session was instrumental in establishing new practices focussed on inclusivity and supporting people represented in data.

“A fair data future is one where we’re thinking about inclusion and governance and talking about putting data to good use,” Karen Bett, senior policy manager, data equity and inclusion said.

Data privacy and transparency came up as top priorities in the discussions among team members, with Praise Ocheanya, research analyst at CivicSignal pointing out how data privacy issues can often be overlooked or go unaddressed. “The session emphasised how important it is to understand my data privacy rights,” she said.

For Damilola Aderohunmu, CfA Academy’s product manager, the session underscored how closely aligned the organisation’s core principles are with the Data Values Manifesto. “As an Academy, our constant pursuit is to empower individuals with actionable insights through knowledge. The skill share session unveiled fresh opportunities to advance our mission and emphasise the significance of ethical and responsible data utilisation,” she said.

Going forward, democratising of data skills for greater equality will be incorporated into our existing academy.AFRICA knowledge sharing initiative. Our internal skill share sessions will prioritise topics identified by the team, such as Confidentiality Integrity and Availability (CIA) of data, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and qualitative learning.

As a data leader on the continent, we’re constantly looking for ways to improve how we work to empower as many citizens as possible. By aligning with the data values manifesto, we’re fostering a culture of transparency, data sharing and use within the organisation and improving our data collection strategies in our internal processes.

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Code for Africa (CfA) is the continent’s largest network of civic technology and data journalism labs, with teams in 21 countries. CfA builds digital democracy solutions that give citizens unfettered access to actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions, and that strengthens civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability. This includes building infrastructure like the continent’s largest open data portals at openAFRICA and sourceAFRICA. CfA incubates initiatives as diverse as the africanDRONE network, the PesaCheck fact-checking initiative, the sensors.AFRICA air quality sensor network and the research and analysis programme CivicSignal.

CfA also manages the African Network of Centres for Investigative Reporting (ANCIR), which gives the continent’s best muckraking newsrooms the latest possible forensic data tools, digital security and whistleblower encryption to help improve their ability to tackle crooked politicians, organised crime and predatory big business. CfA also runs one of Africa’s largest skills development initiatives for digital journalists, and seed funds cross-border collaboration.