Ghana Open Data Initiative (GODI)

Project: Ghana Open Data Initiative (GODI)
Summary: Support the Government of Ghana to create a locally sustainable long-term Open Data Initiative.
Partners: Web Foundation, National Information and Technology Agency (NITA), and the cooperation of many organisations within the country.
Status: January 2012 through mid 2013. Discontinued.
Funding: The project originated from discussions started during the feasibility study and is funded by NITA.

In August 2010, the Web Foundation started a project to conduct an assessment of the feasibility and potential of establishing an Open Data Initiative (ODI) in two countries: Ghana and Chile. The feasibility reports were published in draft form in February 2011 and open for comments for several weeks. The final versions were published in May 2011.

The Ministry of Communications through the National Information and Technology Agency (NITA) engaged the Web Foundation over the following few months in discussions over the feasibility report and its recommendations. In the meantime, the roll-out of the eGovernment Network Infrastructure (GovNET) across the 10 regions in Ghana was completed. With the GovNET in place, data collection and dissemination by Ministries, Departments and Agencies will be easier and will spark of innovation and development with reuse of data so disseminated.

In January 2012, NITA invited the Web Foundation to Accra, to hold brainstorming meetings, a meeting with stakeholders, and kick-start the project in Accra.

Our contribution

After carrying out an initial open data readiness assessment, funded by the Transparency and Accountability Initiative, the Web Foundation was contracted in 2012 by the Government of Ghana to provide technical support to the National Information Technology Agency (NITA).

Our role was to assist NITA in designing and implementing a whole-of-government open data initiative. A beta version of the Ghana Open Data Portal was launched with 100 datasets in November 2012 and a mobile version went live in spring 2013.

Project status

Unfortunately, due to fiscal pressures facing the Ghanaian Government, funding for the initiative was cut and the Web Foundation had to discontinue support of the initiative in mid 2013.

Following our efforts to help kick-start this initiative, the GODI continues to publish datasets, with more than 1,400 datasets published and 17 government departments participating as of mid 2015.

We hope the release of more government data will empower citizens, government and civil society to better evaluate policy outcomes and continually improve the quality of public service delivery.