Why Open Data Is Africa's Most Underused Asset

Every African government collects enormous quantities of data. Health records, land registries, court judgments, budget expenditures, procurement contracts. Most of it sits in spreadsheets on civil servants' laptops, in filing cabinets in government ministries, or in proprietary systems that nobody outside the procuring department can access.

This is not a storage problem. It is a political economy problem. And solving it requires understanding why data gets locked up in the first place.

Why Data Gets Locked

Government data is a source of informational power. Departments that control data can shape policy narratives, resist accountability, and extract rents from those who need access. This is not cynicism — it is the rational behaviour of institutions operating in environments where transparency has historically created vulnerability rather than legitimacy.

Until the incentive structure changes, the data stays locked. Technical solutions — open data portals, API-first government systems — are necessary but not sufficient. They become sustainable only when leaders at ministerial level see political advantage in transparency, or when civil society creates sufficient pressure to make opacity costly.

Where It Has Worked

Nigeria's open contracting disclosure through the Open Contracting Partnership is one of the most compelling examples in Sub-Saharan Africa. Making procurement data public did not happen because the government spontaneously embraced transparency — it happened because donor conditionality, civil society advocacy, and a reformist procurement commissioner created a moment of aligned incentives.

The lesson is not "wait for alignment." It is "identify where alignment exists and build fast before the window closes."

The Infrastructure Argument

The most persuasive case for open data in an African policy context is not the transparency argument — it is the infrastructure argument. Closed government data depresses private sector productivity. Companies making investment decisions in Nigeria do not have access to reliable land registry data, infrastructure maps, or demographic statistics. This increases due diligence costs and drives capital toward markets where public data is more available.

If African governments want to attract the foreign direct investment they consistently prioritise in their economic development frameworks, open data is one of the highest-leverage investments they can make.

What TNG Is Doing

We have built legal data infrastructure for Lagos State that serves as a template for open access to statutory information. The architecture is replicable — and we are actively working with partners in two other West African jurisdictions to adapt it. We publish all of our research on digital public infrastructure openly because we believe the ecosystem-level return exceeds the competitive cost.

The continent's data infrastructure will not be built by governments alone. It will be built by a coalition of technology companies, civil society organisations, development finance institutions, and reform-minded civil servants. We intend to be a consistent part of that coalition.