BEEFS
BEEFS
Chief Data Officer of USAID Brandon Pustejovsky speaking at the launch of DDL
“ We are embarking our efforts to support the data producers , those who are in the field , those who are on the ground , those who are working on USAID funded projects to deliver detailed data to users ”. The DDL portal according to the USAID expert is set to solve two connecting goals which one allows the producers of the data are able to receive and curate the data that USAID funded projects are generating and also give the users an enhanced access
on detailed development data . “ DDL has been designed to be a living active repository where the development community can grow and use together to begin to close the gap between the data producers and the data users ” adds Scott .
Brandon assures that the data will be well secured “ We think responsible data is just as important as open data . We want to make sure that the privacy of vulnerable individuals we are called to serve is also respected we do make sure there ’ s a rigorous clearance process that the data goes through before releasing it to the public ”.
Participants during the DDL launch by USAID in Madrid
One of the future vision for USAID stands at creating an Application that can allow one to key in the data from the remote areas where internet access is still a challenge .
While some are skeptical about the new requirement some of the organisations have welcomed the move saying it will ease data sharing among organizations and avoid duplication of work done by organizations . According to Moses Sitati of the Humanitarian Data Exchange ( HDX ) has had challenges in getting Humanitarian data . “ I am not a user of USAID data portal directly but I have tried getting USAID projects data so I have talked to different people who are funded by USAID trying to get their data but they have not been able to share it with me because of maybe non disclosure agreements or restricted data sharing linked to those projects .” says Moses .
Adding “ For us what we are trying to do is to collect humanitarian or development data from the Horn of and Southern Africa which is pretty wide ranging from socioeconomic data , health , education , poverty , WASH , different activities that would help someone know what a baseline situation is on the ground .” Moses further explains “ Because we are doing it for humanitarian purposes so that if a crisis occurs we would be able to understand at a low administrative district ward level what the baseline conditions were and how it has changed after the crisis . Right now the statistics it is at high level on the County level and National level .”
The Humanitarian Data Exchange aggregates data that has relevance to humanitarian response and shares the data among Humanitarian partners . The Data Exchange organisation also is involved in community awareness on how well they can respond to disasters through the use of open data .
We can only wait and see how many organisations will be able to adhere to this new requirements and whether the Trump led government will enforce and open data government .
LIFE TODAY MAGAZINE Issue 1 , No . 001 / 17 / December 2016 13