Dataphyte has wrapped off a two-day workshop on open data innovation for a 21st-century Bureau for staff of the Plateau State Bureau of Statistics as part of its commitment to establish a community of practice for the advancement of open government data to promote accountability.
The workshop, which was held on October 11 and 12, 2022, in the conference room of the Plateau State Bureau of Statistics, was organized as part of Dataphyte’s responsibility to the Bureau under the terms of an MOU the two parties had signed.
In accordance with the MOU, Dataphyte is also required to assist the Bureau in creating an Open Data Portal, as well as collaborate with the Bureau to compile baseline data and carry out impact analyses for the socioeconomic advancement of the state.
According to the Program Director of Dataphyte, Adenike Aloba, “Open data is an avenue to unlock the potential of official and other information to enable new services, improve the lives of citizens and make government and society work better. The initiative will liberate government data that have been in silos and formats that do not conform to the principles of open government data. It will offer different groups of people and organizations, including the government itself data that can be deployed to determine trends of events and issues as well afford predictive analysis useful for precise decision-making about future developments.”
The program manager of Dataphyte, Charles Mbah demonstrated development tools for data gathering, cleaning, and analysis to the bureau staff during the training.
He asserts that “the training, as well as the open data initiative, will help the Plateau state government make the majority of its socio-economic datasets available to the public, which will help citizens participate actively in the governance process by using the datasets on the platform to be able to interact with government and seeks areas where the government can ensure effective service delivery and socio-economic development in the state.”
Micah Gongden, the statistician general of the Plateau State Bureau of Statistics, remarked that following the training, the Bureau of Statistics will participate in extensive data gathering that will aid in planning by the government.
“We are soliciting, we will be going out to ask for data and wherever they(residents of plateau state) see the staff of the bureau they should release themselves because whatever information they give there is confidentiality and they should give us reliable data so that it can help the government in planning.”
Haruna Catherine and Shon Sylvester, two members of the Bureau staff, share the belief that the training that will assist the Bureau in putting the open data portal concept into action will guarantee that the public has access to government documents for transparency and accountability.
The support that Dataphyte is providing to the Plateau state Bureau is comparable to that which it provided to the Ekiti state Bureau in 2021 when it trained the bureau’s personnel in open data innovation techniques and supported the Bureau in developing its open data portal.
To spread the use of open data for the socioeconomic growth of the subnational level of government, Dataphyte will take this training to additional State Bureaus of Statistics.