Open Data for Smart City and Urban Development

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Open Data for Smart City and Urban Development Open Data for Smart City and Urban Development Cases of Open Data Production and Use in the Global South Open Data for Smart City and Urban Development Cases of Open Data Production and Use in the Global South Contents Introduction . 4 Smart Cities, Civic Technology, and Urban Development . 5 Methods . 6 Cases . 7 Africa . 7 Asia . 12 South America . 15 Observations and Discussion . 18 OpenStreetMap and volunteerism . 18 OPEN DATA FOR SMART CITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT Infomediary roles and international connections . 19 Cities as hubs for open data . 21 Networking recommendations . 22 Appendix I . 23 Method . 23 Survey . 24 Appendix II . 26 Appendix III | References . 27 3 by All Bong OPEN DATA FOR SMART CITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT Introduction Increasing use of open data worldwide facilitates a variety of activities that include government transparency, citizen-government engagement and en- hanced delivery of public services . Open data has proven useful even in the global South where progress can often be inhibited by socioeconomic factors . In such places, open data enables governments, international non-govern- mental organizations (NGOs), and local public and private leaders to innovate and create. This suggests that the global South offers a plethora of experiences for all open data practitioners to draw upon . Events such as the International Open Data Conference (IODC) and organisations such as the Open Data for De- velopment network (OD4D) provide a home for open data practitioners from the global South . Such forums provide opportunities for networking among peers (rather than across a North-South divide) and showcasing of the work being done (as well as continuing needs) in countries such as South Africa, Ne- pal, and Sierra Leone . This report examines cases from the global South and how best to enable the creation of peer-to-peer knowledge networks to aid work being done region- ally. We conclude with recommendations for expansion of the OD4D commu- 4 nity and its role in the future of open data . Smart Cities, Civic Technology, and Urban Development Past research has shown the potential for development through Open Data in the global South (Keserű & Chan, 2017). But the open data community can still benefit from strengthening its work on urban developmental problems taking place in countries in the global South . Smart cities represent a key strategic fo- cus . In the global North, smart city discourse incorporates open data (Kitchin, 2014) and ideas of collaboration to improve municipal services. Schaffers et. al (2011) describe the digital technologies and urban sensors that generate geo- spatial open data as offering a number of benefits to cities that include “dra- matically decreas[ing] the development costs while accelerating the learning curve for operating smart cities .” (ibid, p . 435) Smart city discourse and marketing has spread to the global South over the past decade . Smart city projects in Asia and South America are also highly concentrated (Zubizarreta, Seravalli, & Arrizabalaga, 2016) in the largest ur- ban centres . However, most smart city approaches in the South are rooted in property development (Watson, 2014) strategies that exploit potential growth OPEN DATA FOR SMART CITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT markets through the creation of special economic zones and other incentives for foreign direct investment . These smart city approaches often are focused on capital investment and incentives for the private sector (Muggah, 2014). At the same time, urban centres in the global South face significant challeng- es around development, planning, and engagement . Open data provides a key mechanism through which democratic engagement can be enacted at a time when there is increasing conflict and civil action (Watson, 2012) around who has a “right to the city” in the global South. As a developmental tool, open data holds the potential to support a variety of stakeholders in improving trans- parency of outcomes, involving the public in planning processes, and creating projects that improve municipal governance . To develop an understanding of the potential for open data to integrate with urban smart city development processes in the global South, it is important to examine current cases of open data production/usage and whether or not they compliment existing governmental practices. In this report we highlight a number of cases of open data collaboration between governments and civil society actors and the infomediary role civil society actors play in supporting their respective open data communities . 5 OPEN DATA FOR SMART CITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT by Angelo Moleele Methods Our methods test whether the success of open data has been an isolated phe- nomena. A survey was delivered (see Appendix I) to assess respondent per- ceptions of open data use in urban areas of the global South and solicit an- ecdotes of innovative use cases of open data . Written structured interviews were conducted with 15 respondents across 11 telephone interviews and one written survey . Where possible, a representative from an NGO and a municipal government representative were interviewed in the same city . Four municipal governments and seven NGOs from eight cities across Asia, Africa, and South America were sampled . Cities included Ougadougou, Burkina Faso; Accra, Ghana; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Cape Town, South Africa; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Kathmandu, Nepal; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and, Montevideo, Uruguay . Cas- es were selected through desk research while interviewees were selected and contacted via OD4D’s network of regional leads . A list of respondents can be 6 found in Appendix II. Cases In the following section we provide brief descriptions of eight cases of open data use and production and the challenges faced in each context. These cas- es were compiled from the OD4D regional network and contacts within cities from across the African, Asian, and South American continents . Key observa- tions from interviews are presented to highlight some of the conditions and constraints around open data’s use for urban development . Africa Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso Burkina Faso’s National Agency for the Promotion of ICT (ANPTIC) initiated the Burkina Open Data Initiative (BODI) in 2015 (ANPTIC, 2015). The country built a multi-level community of civil society, NGOs and government organi- zations under the initiative . Its national data portal (Open Data Burkina Faso, n.d.) established in 2013 with the support from ODI and the World Bank (School of Data, 2016) contains datasets, a pilot project on education data, and an en- gagement platform for citizens to share ideas on open data reuse with the gov- OPEN DATA FOR SMART CITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT ernment (CIRDO, n.d.). A right to information decree passed in 2015 strength- ens the sharing and reuse of data (Conseil national de la transition, 2015). At the ground level, Burkina Faso faces serious power shortages (Moner-Gi- rona et. al., 2016) resulting in frequent load shedding problems. These in- clude in the capital city Ouagadougou where approximately 40 percent of ur- ban areas have access to power while a total of 3 percent have access to power nationwide (World Bank, 2017). A partnership between Open Burkina (a civil society organisation), the Societé national d’électricité du Burkina Faso (SO- NABEL) (the country’s national electricity company), and Open Burkina (an Open Knowledge International Group) is developing a mobile service to help citizens adapt to chronic power outages. This involves notifying affected res- idents of load shedding schedules (via mobile applications {apps} and short message service {SMS} notifications) to enable them to adapt their person- al schedules (Idriss, 2017). The use of sensors installed in homes to collect data on power grid performance represents a use of open data (load shedding schedules) that provides a smart service to citizens and encourages commu- nity adaptation and resilience to power outages . 7 This approach is evident in Open Burkina’s approach to smart cities, whereby the project can be framed as a smart city project, “we are trying to make the citizen interactive, in order to help plan and deliver…service delivery for them. We are trying to see how the citizen can be part of the response. How they can react. How they can participate to the planning and delivery of some services. And we think that, that is a key element of the smart cities.” (Open Burkina respondent) . Accra, Ghana In 2012, Ghana initiated its Ghana Open Data Initiative (GODI) with support from the Open Government Partnership (AIMS, 2017). The National Informa- tion and Technology Agency of Ghana funds, maintains, and manages the por- tal (Government of Ghana, n .d .) with the cooperation of many other national organizations (World Wide Web Foundation, 2015). TransGov (n.d.), a private OPEN DATA FOR SMART CITY AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT sector project building upon GODI, began by creating apps to collect open data . It too has been supported by GODI as well as the OD4D’s peer-to-peer knowledge sharing networks . Through web and mobile platforms, TransGov aims to con- nect citizens with governments by providing a platform for them to contribute geospatially referenced data . In turn, municipal government use such data to visualise local infrastructure problems and provide better service . The current mobile application crowdsources infrastructure issues and enables residents of Accra to engage local government authorities with greater ease and efficiency. One interview respondent from the Ghana Open Data Initiative expressed strong hope for open data to be used for smart city development in Ghana when they said: “I see smart city as the systematic integration of ICTs and technologies into cities, citizen-centric, with better quality services, and with more sustainable environment. Smart cities can be a part of the transition to a knowledge economy. Open data can be used to solve most of the problems.” (Ghana Open Data Initiative respondent) 8 At the same time, the respondent highlighted the uncertainty that remains in IT infrastructure development projects that receive external funding (in this case the eTransform project) (World Bank, 2013).
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