Nigeria ranks 67/92 nations in Open Data Barometer

Nigeria has open government data available on both health and education – a good step forward for transparency and innovation in the country.

However, more data must be opened to the public to allow citizens to access and analyse information for free, and find ways to improve policies that affect them.

Open data will play a critical role in anti-corruption, Nigeria must open data on procurement contracts, public spending, budget and company registers.

According to the over half of countries studied now have open data initiatives, but still less than 10 percent of the government data vital for sustainable development is open.

The Web Foundation set up by World Wide Web inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, announced yesterday the results of the third Open Data Barometer, a global snapshot of the state of open government data in 92 countries.

Open data is data that is openly published online and is free for all to access and reuse. For the first time, over half of the countries in the recent study have open data initiatives in place.

However, faster progress on translating commitments into action is needed to close data gaps in the developing world, the study warns. Fewer than 10 percent of the datasets surveyed were open, and most of these are in the rich world: nearly half of the open datasets in our study are found in just 10 OECD countries, while almost none are in African countries.

Although many developing countries have pledged to open up more data  – with 10 additional developing countries making open data commitments last year alone – a lack of resources and weak data infrastructure are limiting implementation.

This data divide is depriving developing countries of the information tools they need to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals on education, health, environment, and rule of law, the study warns.

Combating corruption: Only 2% of countries in the study publish detailed public spending data and only 1% publish open company data – the two worst performing datasets in our study. Contracting data performs slightly well, with 8% of data open. Publishing this data in reusable, machine-readable formats is essential not only to pierce the veil of secrecy, but also to help corruption fighters unravel the complex webs through which illicit money circulates.