[slideshowck id=”5315″]The open data and data analytics capacity building/training at ToroDev started on 29th October, 2019, aimed at developing New Strategy for 2020-2025. The training is scheduled to go on until end of January 2020. The Training is conducted by Thibi, a Data Analytics and ICT4D Consulting institution based in Singapore, in partnership with a team from Open Development Institute. The training is supported with funding from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) through the ICT4Democarcy Network for East Africa and Collaboration on International ICT Policy for Eastern & Southern Africa (CIPESA).
Civic participation in Uganda and other Eastern Africa countries has improved over years. Citizens, especially in urban centers are increasingly engaging in questioning how they are governed and how public resources are being used to improve service delivery through broadcast media, social media and physical engagements. However, on many occasions the discourse gets lost and does not yield systematic positive results in improving public service delivery, due to inadequate evidence data to back up engagements, poor skills and high costs to generate such data and even to adequately access and analyse readily available published public data.
The Executive Director ToroDev Johnstone K Baguma responding to questions during a training session
This training, therefore, is aimed at having a well-trained team at ToroDev to guide the Open Data Initiative, developing an open data platform and having data analytics experts to support the organization’s online and offline governance engagements for improved service delivery in health, education and economic development sectors – to start with. As a result, the current MML e-Participation Platform will be enhanced and transformed into a complete digital Open Data facility to support civil society practitioners, researchers, health, education and private institutions involved in research, advocacy and provision of public services to foster sustainable development in Uganda and beyond. Specific data sets on the platform will include, but not limited to; AgriData, EduData, HealthData and generalized Data4Governance.
After building capacity of ToroDev staff, an effort to train other civil society members in open data for development skills will be piloted in the Rwenzori sub-region of western Uganda, and later scaled up in other regions of Uganda and beyond.
