UN WORLD FORUM
Private sector urged to share data that would benefit Africa
Moral and ethical issues of sharing African data come under the spotlight
The private sector is sitting on extensive data that could benefit society if it were made more accessible to governments, researchers and citizens, according to a forthcoming report on African data from the World Wide Web Foundation. The African Data Revolution Report, due to be released in March, found that a considerable amount of economic, environmental and natural resource data is held by the private sector in SA, Kenya and Nigeria. "There is a moral and ethical issue if companies hold data that has social benefits. Are they entitled to sit on it?" asked Jean-Paul van Belle, one of the report’s co-authors and director of the Centre for IT and National Development in Africa at the University of Cape Town. "We need incentives and demonstration projects where companies allow data to be released," he said on the sidelines of the first UN World Data Forum, which was held in Cape Town from January 15-18. World Wide Web Foundation CEO Anne Jellema told delegates African governments ne...
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