OUR WORK

Through regular meetings and impactful programmes, the Alliance elevates the importance of data access for advancing the African agenda, and also emphasises its growing relevance for regulators, researchers, media, political parties, and civil society.

THematic areas

Data access and elections
Stakeholders for data include: Elections Management Bodies, Political Parties, Civil Society, amongst others

They depend on data from official sources (eg. census figures), and private sources (eg. media coverage patterns, social media trends), and from each other.

Their access to and use of data requires data literacy and data partnerships, as well as knowledge of the African norms and standards they can reference in order to promote their purposes.
Data and access to information
Stakeholders include Information and Data Protection Regulators, civil society groups, researchers and media.

They depend on a functioning and expansive Right to Information regime which covers data as a public good, and encompasses private sector data holdings when public interest is at stake.

Their access to and use of data can advance transparency and accountability, and unlock data resources that are otherwise not availed to the public, using African points of reference to make their case.
Data access and media
Journalists and media managers, as well as media start-ups, have a strong interest in accessing data for editorial and for business purposes.

They depend on systems and skills to put data to use, and they depend on open data sets as well as partnerships with data scientists and data-holders (such as platforms).

Media can play a major part in raising public literacy about data in relation to African standards and continental objectives (such as Agenda 2064).
Data literacy
The range of stakeholders here encompasses the full public as well as specialised interests.

Their interests depend on awareness of rights and obligations concerning the gathering, storage and use of data, and knowledge of the potential of data in democracy and development.

Literacy includes agency on how to use data as relevant to their situation, and awareness of its use (and, sometimes, abuse) by others. Full data literacy entails knowledge about Africa’s position in the global digital economy and how data is treated as a primary source of value creation and extraction.