Open data platforms and development in Latin America

There is increasing excitement about the developmental effects that data released in open format could bring to the global south. The so called open data—data released in digital format, publicly available for anyone to use—promise to contribute to key development goals, such as economic growth, job creation, inclusion and access to public services. To illustrate the economic potential, McKinsey estimated in 2013 that the economic value of open data could reach between $1 and $3 trillion per year. Although these figures remain highly speculative, the rationale is that by using or re-using open data, new products and business can be created, innovation can be spurred, and productive processes can be optimised to achieve gains in productivity. That includes governments and public organisations. Open data can help improving the delivery and quality of public services and can contribute to the efficiency of internal operations. Equally important, open data is seen as central means to increase transparency, fight corruption, as well as promote inclusion and civic participation. The latter has been particularly acknowledged in the commitments that governments endorse when joining the global Open Government Partnership.

Open data in Latin America

As a region, Latin America has moved comparatively quickly in embracing open data initiatives. Mexico, Uruguay and Brazil lead the table among the developing world and are amongst the top 18 best performing countries in the 2016 Open Data Barometer, a global ranking led by the World Wide Web Foundation that ranks countries according to the publication and readiness of key government datasets and evidence of its impact. In addition, the region has now five countries within the top 20 of the 2017 Open Data Index—a survey coordinated by the Open Knowledge Foundation that measures the state of open government data around the world.

The commercial, for profit approach of open data has yet to take off in Latin America. More often, what is found in the region is a growing open data ecosystem that is moving forward an agenda of accountability, innovation and participation. The region holds its own Open Data Conference (AbreLatam/ConDatos) annually since 2013. The annual meet up has strengthened regional communities that use open data to offer tangible solutions in areas of public health, government transparency, transportation and urban planning. A self-reported survey gathered in Abrelatam reveals 196 projects from 135 organisations in these areas.

The ecosystem in Latin America means that different actors have contributed to unlock the value of open data in the region. Governments are important ones—they build open data platforms that form the supply side of the data value chain. But the realisation of the value of these platforms lie on the applications and services that are built on top of the data. The city of Buenos Aires, for example, used hackathons and apps competitions to engage developers and start-ups to co-create new services. In Montevideo, the municipality partnered with the civil society organisation DATA to run a platform called Por Mi Barrio, developed based on the UK’s FixMyStreet initiative. Por Mi Barrio helps people to report street problems like broken street lights or potholes and link it to the municipality to fix them. NGOs and local activist are, thus, another crucial actor in the ecosystem. Ciudadano Inteligente in Chile and SocialTIC in Mexico, both promote transparency, inclusion and citizen participation through open data and the use of new informational technologies. Journalists also contribute to open up government data for accountability purposes. Argentine newspaper La Nación and its data division LNData won the Data Journalism Award for their work on opening up unstructured, closed and opaque data from Argentina’s Senate expenses in times of no freedom of information laws and controversies surrounding media access to government information. In Peru, the organization Convoca opened up public data to help users understand the behaviour of extractive industries in Peru and its impact on people’s lives. The project, called Excesos sin Castigo (“Excesses Unpunished”) won the Data Journalism Award in 2016.

Research into open data platforms and their ecosystem

Despite the anecdotal evidence, the mechanisms through which open data can scale and harness developmental goals have not yet been clearly established. My current programme of research examines how open government data fosters innovation and enables economic and social development in Latin America. One of my ongoing projects, jointly with my colleague Ben Eaton, studies empirically how engagement with open government data platforms unfolds in Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Montevideo. In specific terms, we ask how the installed base (the actors in the ecosystem) is mobilised in open data platforms. Drawing from literature on digital platforms, we aim to understand the context, formation, grow and functioning of the installed base, and to offer insights on the ways actors interact to use and generate value from these platforms. The results of this work will be ready in 2018, so watch this space for research insights and policy implications.