Out of 92 countries in the Open Data Barometer published by the Web Foundation, Nigeria is presently ranked 67th.
According to the Web Foundation, open data will play a critical role in anti-corruption, adding that the Nigerian government must open data on procurement contracts, public spending, budget and company registers so as to allow citizens access and analyze information for free and find ways to improve policies that affect them.
“Today the Web Foundation, set up by World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, announced 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 are openly published online and is free for all to access and reuse. For the first time, over half of the countries in our study have open data initiatives in place,” it added.
The report acquired over the weekend showed that Nigeria has open government data available on both health and education, which has been endorsed to be a good step towards transparency and innovation in the country.
Also, in the terms of improving health and education, the report noted that: “Only 13 per cent and 11 per cent of the countries respectively publish open data on the performance of health and education services, while only 15 per cent release open demographic data that can be combined with health and education data to identify ways to improve outcomes for women, girls and poor communities, for instance.
