THE SPARKS FOR IGNITING THE DATA REVOLUTION

The data revolution should include a universal legislation requiring states to provide open, good quality data

Ever since the release of the High Level Panel report on the Post 2015 development agenda in 2013, the concept of a data revolution has gained significant traction in conversations at the global level. Nonetheless progress towards actualising the revolution in practical terms remains hamstrung by data sourcing and a myriad other challenges that can potentially be dealt with by an internationally-led consensus and sustained momentum to bring multiple stakeholders on board, and work closely with governments on issues of accessibility and usability of good quality, timely and relevant data and information.

  

I have participated in forums discussing the idea of the data revolution. I have also engaged in related conversations that seek to leverage the use of data and information for better policy making, governance and service delivery like the Open Government Partnership (OGP), the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) and the Open Data movements. A lot has been achieved towards outlining what is meant by the data revolution, of course with diverse and sometimes divergent views, what we want to achieve with it, and what obstacles remain on the way towards realising it.

  

The World Bank has sponsored elaborate conversations on the data revolution both in international forums and within localised national level facilitated processes. The Oversees Development Institute (ODI) as well through the Post 2015 blog has sponsored a series of research work and literature on the nature and impetus behind the data revolution. The PARIS 21facilitated an event on the sides of the UN General Assembly in 2013 on engineering a development data revolution. Elsewhere Civil Society Organisations are organising a broad range of stakeholders in many countries to make sense of the data revolution and what developmental ends could be achieved from it. In East Africa Development Initiatives is engaging an ecosystem of data handlers to discuss how to make sense of and utilise the data revolution to end poverty.

  

There is near consensus that the data revolution must be underpinned by a focus on providing open data, that is of good quality – available in machine readable formats and up to date.

However, the common narrative about what impedes the data revolution seems to rest on source challenges emanating from the supply side. These apply both in developed and developing countries. The argument is that even before discussing what to do with the data and how to make it relevant to poverty reduction in order to resonate with lives of common citizens, we need to locate the data. Data providers on the other hand lament that whatever is made available, no matter how little, is not being used. So where do we stand?

I am persuaded that unless these sourcing and usability of currently available data issues are resolved there will be significant challenges in realising the data revolution.

Across the globe, the approaches to data sourcing and tackling usability challenges vary, with similarities in certain instances. Some are using national level legislation or policies to compel custodians of development data to make it available to the public, while some are using laborious and expensive processes of purchasing and digitising data that is not available in machine friendly formats. But these approaches have achieved very little since, governments - custodians of the largest proportion of development data either lack the incentive, political will, or legal frameworks to make data available.

We now know that many interventions and programmes being implemented globally and at national levels are based on poor quality data or statistics that make them tenuous and contestable.  Yet for over a decade, enormous resources have been allocated and programmes implemented to tackle development challenges. African economies are suddenly leaping into middle income status due to revisions in national statistics and introduction of data previously not considered in calculating important national development indices.

The current development data isn’t good enough. Nearly 40% of developing countries cannot measure their poverty trends over the last decade due to inadequate data. The HLP report on post 2015 development agenda and UN Secretary General’s report on poverty both call for pioneering approaches to improving quality, timeliness and relevance of development data and a fundamental rethinking of the way we use data for social good” – Dr Jim Yong Kim, World Bank President.

I am of the opinion that now more than ever, the data revolution requires an international level facilitated process, to require national governments to make good quality data available to the public. Such a process could drive country level action by multiple stakeholders to invest in producing data and translating it to usable information.

This has been achieved in other spheres, for example the declaration on human rights was ratified globally compelling states to abide by and guarantee a minimum set of rights for all their citizens.

Through diplomacy and international driven consensus, development practitioners can lobby for a similar international declaration, or better yet, a standalone goal in the post 2015 framework to guarantee access to information to all citizens across the world. This could provide the much needed leverage that actors at national levels pushing for increased access to development data can use to further the agenda of the data revolution

This blog was originally posted on Open Development Toolkit here:  http://opendevtoolkit.net/en-US/blog/sparks-igniting-revolution/ 

God help us, forgive us for we have sinned.

Deliver us from the yokes of shameless PR, waste & kleptocracy

Dear Uhuru, Jubilee and Co. 

Next time you feel inspired and fired up to take Kenya to the lord in prayer, please, just kneel down on your well manicured office floor and pray, or in the car, or in the gym or on the plane now that yours is an airborne presidency.

Spare us the extra expenses of prayers at 5-starred hotels. The spectre of Safari Park Hotel wont rocket the prayer items to the almighty. 

We pray every day for our beloved Kenya - on the jam chocked in dust fumes and noise; in the quiet of our humble homes; in the sanctity of the many shrines that we have built with our honest kind contributions. Some of them are actually spruced enough to suit the ostentations of your stature and honour. And we believe God hears our prayers, we believe God sees our tears. He does respond! 

This is how God commands us to pray sir:

 "Matthew 6:5-12 - But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will repay you. "And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words"

"1 Timothy 2:8 - I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting"

I have hosted events in these starred hotels like you hosted prayers yester. A breakfast meeting like that costs at least 2000 Kshs per head. I saw on TV dignitaries well over 1000 sir, praying for Kenya at Safari Park. We spent at least 2million bob praying, even if we discount all the other costs of taking you and your convoy to Thika road and back, the time wasted on the jam for the rest of us lowlies.

I am hurt sir, that whilst prayer is good, and God asks us to pray and take all our tribulations (terrorism, Anglo leasing, ethnicity in public service etc) to him in prayer, we spent so much in a shameless PR exercise. I am not judging - I leave it to God! I am not righteous.

Amen.

Let me be, this is my time. 

Let me be, this is my time. 
I am young, this is the time I can afford to live by my idealism 
When I still got the backbone, to stand up to unjust and corrupt morals 
When I still got the energy, to bear the weight that my idealism elicits
When I still got the courage, to dream big and the balls to take on the obstacles that come with my aspirations.

Let me be, this is my time.
I am young, this is the time I can afford the conviction to defend my idealism
When I still got the wits, to debate and the impatience for mediocrity
When I still got the friends, to rebuke, disregard or thumbs up my ideals
When I still got the aptitude, to call the resources to fund my itentions
When I still got the charm, to summon belief in my deeds
When I still got the blood and flesh, to die a thousand deaths.

Let me be, this is my time.
I am young, this is the time I can afford the creativity to change something 
When I have to look myself in the mirror and tell myself - not good enough
When I have to look my elders, my peers in the eye and tell them - not good enough
When I have to look my past, say thank you but - not good enough
When I have to look my future and say it can - not [be] good enough.   

Let me be, this is my time.
I am young, this is the time I can and MUST change the world.

742,800 'new' jobs? huh!

Who'se taking that load of bullcrap that the Kenyan economy generated 750K new jobs in 2013? ‪This Jubilee government thinks it can fool everyone. Planning and Devolution Cabinet Secretary now wants Kenyans to believe that some 742,800 'new' jobs were created in 2013, alone. My question is, which economy is it that Ms Waiguru is talking about? Which Kenya? Where are these jobs? 

Even if we believed those dodgy figures:

According to statistics released yesterday, from the Economic Survey 2014, in 2013, Kenya purportedly generated some 742,800 'new' jobs. The same survey indicates that Agriculture and Tourism two of the main sectors that contribute the largest proportion of GDP, and contribute the largest share of employment reported a decline in growth. Agriculture sector grew by a marginal 2.9% compared to 4.2% in 2012. Tourism numbers continued to dip in 2013 (1.5 million arrivals compared to 1.8 million in 2011). Growth is thus attributed largely to the private sector in areas of manufacturing (grew by 8.9%), retail, wholesale and construction.

So if we take it that manufacturing was the largest driver of growth of jobs, meaning the other sectors contributed less we should see manufacturing contributing the largest chunk of the new 742 thousand jobs. However in the same survey, manufacturing jobs only expanded from 271,000 in 2013 to 280,300 thousand in 2013. That’s a marginal difference of only about 9,000 jobs. 

Yet overall new jobs jumped from 665,800 in 2012 to 742,800 in 2013 (difference of 77,000). So here begs the question: 

“If manufacturing, contributing the largest share of new jobs, also registering the greatest growth (8.9%) only contributed 9,000 new jobs (above 2012 new ones), where else did we source the other 68,000 that account for the 77,000 difference between growth in 2012 and 2013? The other dwarfing sectors that registered dismal growth or decline like agriculture may be? 

If anything with the Kenyan economic circumstances 5% growth can produce no more than 30K new formal sector jobs. So even if we had such an awesome informal sector with super job creating ability it could not have created 200 times what the 4.7% growth would have realistically produced in 2013 in the formal sector.

Just wondering what voodoonomics happened between 2012 and 2014 that could change things so dramaticaly. See the graphs below, even when the economy grew exponentially from 2.7% in 2009 to 5.8% in 2010 the rate of growth of new jobs in the formal sector was never as sharp as we are being made to believe it happened in 2013. New jobs grew from 53,400 in 2009 to 57,200 in 2010 compared to Jubilee's 78,700 to 109,900 with just 0.7% (4.6% to 4.7%) difference in economic growth. The math just doesnt add up. There has to be a correlation between economic growth and jobs creation.

Problem is, in this day and age, not even the powerpoint that Ms Waiguru used to release the Economic Survey 2014 yesterday is available online on KNBS website or Planning and Devolution Ministry. We are relying on snippets from media reports that do not provide the real picture. I desperately hope that for want of evidence to demonstrate progress attributable to the Jubilee government people arent cooking growth figures and hoping to conceal it from the public. 

Let them release the full report, plus the data used to arrive at those conclusions so Kenyans can judge the credibility of those growth figures accordingly.

A journalist sought my opinion on East Africa's 'Black Gold'. This is what I told her. What do you think?

Q1. What does it mean for the region with the discovery of oil and gas in the East African Region?

Foremost, like in many other poor countries in Africa (Nigeria, Angola, Zambia) and South America (Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador) that have handled the influx of natural resources, the discovery of oil and gas in East Africa portends huge increases in revenues from export of oil and gas.

·         Larger revenue basket: It provides significant opportunities to increase state revenues which could be instrumental in developmental spending, addressing pressing issues of poverty, deprivation and inequality that are rife in the region.

·         Surplus energy: It would increase the stock of energy that could balance the prevailing energy deficit that the region has got to deal with. This could be critical in driving industrial development, and increasing competitiveness for foreign direct investment currently hamstrung by energy deficiencies.

  

·         The EAC integration project: It could also mean additional resources that could be invested in driving the integration agenda. This could also incentivize collective management of the natural resources, however it could as well elicit nationalistic idiosyncrasies that could severe intraregional relations

·         Tax implications: Depending on how much the actual find turns out to be, and the character of tax regimes that the different countries adopt, it could also mean a reduction of the tax burden shouldered by citizens 

However, like it has been widely researched and discussed (the discourse around the natural resource curse), the oil and gas find could also bring with it problems of governance and accountability. Natural resource revenues are pervasive not only for local political and governance systems but also for international relations (oil is often a strategic commodity for foreign policy). Oil can corrupt systems, provide incentives for poor economic policy and politics, compromise governance, and exacerbate corruption. It could induce and shape the political environment in a manner that could disincentivize the building of strong and effective institutions for accountability, democracy and good governance;

·     It could disrupt accountability systems built around tax and tax bargaining. Where fiscal revenues (mainly from oil or gas) swell, this could encourage laxity and undermine effective taxation.   

·        It could exacerbate preexisting political, social and institutional problems including bad governance, wasteful government spending, socio-economic inequalities and social conflict

·       Despite significant gains with decentralization policies across the region, a revenue boom from oil/gas exploitation could also tempt political elite to revert to recentralization and increase of central government control over new revenue streams

Q2. As a researcher what policies do you think the government should put in place in regards to the oil and gas discovery? Have the governments done enough in regards to legislations in this sector?

Reform Fiscal Policy

Robust fiscal policies will be critical as a central strategy for optimising the opportunities that resources could bring. Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania must learn from other developing states that have exploited natural resources.  These learnings are fundamental in designing prudent fiscal policies that recognise the exhaustibility and volatility of oil/gas revenues. They must strike a balance between what is allocated for government revenue and what portion is saved for fiscal sustainability.

·  Consider State capitalism – increase citizen stake in oil production: Institute mechanisms for government and citizens to invest in the whole value chain of oil production to increase opportunities for retaining proceeds in the region. Establish an investment bond through which citizens with idle money can invest in parastatals or increase stake in the multinational corporations contracted to do the exploitation.

·   Interrogate the state’s role in the management of oil: Think of alternative modalities for managing and sharing the proceeds of the resource find. The government must not be only entity to execute the sharing of oil wealth.

·   Expand oil footprint in the economy: Utilise revenues from oil to expand and diversify the economy, as well as invest in other sectors which could have a greater impact on employment and wealth creation. Use oil money to bolster inclusive growth - exploit oil  to  facilitate growth in other sectors

·  Design and execute effective tax regimes that ensure fairness: Negotiate strategically to ensure that MNCs do not repatriate large proportions of the proceeds. Maximise on revenues from investors, but also maintain a reasonable tax package to increase citizen stake in governance. Keep government accountable on exploitation and utilisation of resources.

·    Fiscal sustainability (ensure generational equity): Strive to achieve long term fiscal sustainability. Encourage flexibility in fiscal policy in order to effectively deal with unique developmental problems and pressing developmental needs. Aim to strike a balance between developmental spending and fiscal sustainability.

·   Reform budgeting structure to increase spending on development issues such as pro-poor sectors and exercise flexibility in fiscal policy to deal with unique developmental problems.

Liberate information and increase civil knowledge

Natural resources exploitation in Africa is shrouded with secrecy, opaqueness and discreteness. Information on progress with exploration, mining, bidding, contracting, sales as well revenues generated must be made open, accessible and available to the public. Deliberate and consistent efforts to open up information on dealings related to these resources must put them in public domain. Greater effort needs to be made in terms the e-governance agenda, the open data initiative and the right to information. Augment this with an apt revenue and expenditure tracking system to monitor what governments do with revenues and to ensure that proceeds from these resources are prioritised on reducing poverty, addressing developmental needs.

Develop appropriate legislative and institutional frameworks

Adequate and well thought through legislation must be instituted to regulate the exploitation of the natural resource wealth and to determine the integration of natural resource considerations into Public Finance Management laws. There must be an appropriate legal framework developed based on multi-stakeholder consensus before exploitation commences. Utilisation and expenditure of revenues must be treated more as a public finance management issue than natural resource exploitation imperative. Legislation could regulate:

·   Revenue sharing formulae: both in terms of proportions for government spending versus what is saved for fiscal sustainability, and sub-national sharing

·      Tax regimes for both investing MNCs and public tax payers

·  Policy and legislative space for citizens, citizen representatives, civil society organisations

·       Sustainable exploitation to ensure intergenerational equity

However policy options must take cognisance of and be effectively embedded in pre-existing political and institutional contexts otherwise this might risk exacerbating underlying problems. This is because as much as formal political institutions, policies and legislative frameworks can improve management of revenues and governance of natural resources, a resource bubble has the potential of changing underlying configuration of political interests around the distribution of such resources.

Increase citizen engagement: Expand CSO and media space

There has been significant expansion in public engagement and participation in recent years. This space provides an opportunity for CSOs and the media to actively take part as citizen representatives in overseeing the management of East Africa’s natural resource wealth. They must ensure government is accountable, and demand transparency in the dealings on the oil and gas finds. They must be proactive in influencing government action such as challenging malpractices, pushing policy suggestions, proposing new or revised legislation in order to maximise the benefits of natural resources.

 Q3. Does it mean the cost of doing business in region will go down?

The cost of doing business in any location (East Africa included) is in principal subject to an array of issues ranging from infrastructure, legal/policy issues, and personnel, to cost of production that transcend the scope and influence of increased oil and gas stocks. Nonetheless, this would affect the energy component of business inputs and the attendant impacts that it would have on other non-energy inputs that affect the overall cost of doing business.

Increased oil/gas production could mean lower energy costs that could translate into cheaper transport costs, lower overheads for industrial enterprises. It must be noted however that this is subject to local fiscal policies as well as global market forces.

Q4. Is the region ready for the black gold?

It is difficult to say yes or no to this question. Why, because i) readiness as is put in the question is rather relative and ii) the question of the actual magnitude of the resource find has not been resolved. However assuming that readiness in this context refers to the capacity to deal with the potential issues that the resource find will elicit, you could isolate: Policy, legislative and institutional aptitude, Civic knowledge/awareness and Planning as crucial pointers to the readiness of the region.

·               
Considering policy, legislative and institutional preparedness, - the countries in the region looking forward to the rich resource finds have hardly thought through the requisite policies or legal frameworks that could regulate and support the management of these resources. Kenya for example is in the process of enacting a law to regulate mining that in fact still does not expressly attend to the humongous challenges that will come with exploiting oil when the time comes.  

·               There is a lot of speculation, misconceptions and high expectations surrounding the discovery of oil and gas in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania which have not been effectively dealt with by the respective governments. The natural resource exploitation endeavours currently underway in the region are shrouded in a lot of secrecy and opaqueness. Information on progress is hardly in the public coffers. This has fuelled ignorance and continues to curtail efforts at keeping governments accountable on progress and engaging policy makers on what they would want done with the resources.

·                With regards to planning, it is important to recognise foremost that in most of the countries warming up to the discoveries, exploration has not been concluded. It means therefore that it is premature to tell or even estimate the size of the find. This information is very crucial for planning. The macro-plans of the three countries hardly touch on the prospects of these revenues and by default do not factor in these revenues in the macro dreams they have. The vision 2030 polices have little connection to the prospects of these resources for example yet they should ideally be funded by such resources

  

Q5. With the discovery of oil, will the bio-fuel projects be abandoned?

I am not an expert in bio-fuels in the region so am not in a position to authoritatively comment on this question. However it is probably relevant to underscore the impact of oil and gas production on the motivation to pursue other sources of energy. Oil or gas production (as has been experienced in other countries like South Sudan) has the capacity to diminish investment in other economic activities. This must however still be considered in light of the knowledge of the exact size of the estimated reserves. Where the reserve is not significant, the diminishing effect would not be pronounced. This could be variant depending on policies adopted by the different countries in the region. It could very well stifle the quest for other sources of cleaner energy in states where government freezes or under-invests in alternative sources like bio-fuels. In countries that adopt frameworks that balance exploitation with research and exploration of other possible options the result would be much different.  

AU; wobbling shamelessly like tuk tuk tires as bloodletting endures in South Sudan, CAR

This is the reason I got little patience for that cabal of selfish power mongers calling itself the African Union (AU). You have whined big time about how the west (US, France, UK, Germany etc) hijacked the process in Libya, Somalia. Big question is: 

What has the AU done in the wake of genocide in South Sudan; bloodletting in the Central African Republic? Even Somalia (what have been the returns thus far?).

When it was time to yank tirades at the west about the ICC, about sovereignty and imperialism - you were super-vocal. When it was time to peddle cheap rhetoric about the 'alternative' that is China - you made the loudest prolonged noise (in unison). When it was time to yap aimlessly about homosexuality - folks had loads to say uh?

But when serious commitment and concrete action is urgently needed to address some of Africa's saddest realities in South Sudan, CAR, Northern Nigeria, Eastern DRC, Kenya - people are wobbling like tuk tuk tires.

SHAME - where is Mugabe? Museveni? Jonathan? Zuma? Uhuru? Where are they with the balls now? Where are those others, multilaterals so bent on setting up political federations and unions like the East African Community, IGAD etc. Show us something.

#ListentoSouthSudan

Corrupt Kenyan immigration and inept security officers must take responsibility for rampant terrorism

There are Somali refugees all over the world; in the UK, US, and in many European countries. They do not hurl grenades into public places, or take people hostage, kill and maim so invariably as it is happening in Kenya. 

The problem, is clearly not the refugees. You can ethnically profile, deport, harass and humiliate Somalis in Kenya but that won’t solve the problem. That wont stop terrorist attacks and infiltration of more hardened cells of terrorist establishments, sympathisers of Shabaab and Al Qaeda.

Corrupt Kenyan immigration and inept security officers must take responsibility. Immigration and security is treated with so much secrecy. Loads of money spent yet these busybodies cannot prevent dodgy characters from getting into our country and jeopardising the lives of tolerant Kenyans who've been living with hundreds of thousands of refugees for decades - Somali, Sudanese, Congolese, Rwandese, Burundian. 

Somebody yapped about an impending shake-up of the entire security apparatus in Kenya after West Gate (NSIS, internal security, military etc). It still remains IMPENDING, 6 months down. 

Bunch of talkers right?