As part of our mission to help businesses and governments around the world get data to people who need it, we have worked with the World Bank over the last two years to provide training and support to the Tanzania Open Data Initiative
Tanzania joined the Open Government Partnership in 2011 and launched its Open Data Initiative a year later, with the support of its former president, Jakaya Kikwete. The government created a task force to lead it, launched a portal in March 2015 and published its first datasets (in its priority sectors: health, education and water). But its capacity – to clean, organise, publish and use data – was limited, which is why we offered our support.
Over the course of the project, we organised six week-long visits to Tanzania, and one visit to London, training 222 people and reaching a further 127 with policy advice and engagement, including policy seminars and communications masterclasses. This helped participants from government and civil society to develop their data literacy, skills and advocacy. As part of the training, we developed four tailored e-learning modules to help people explore available data management tools and practice data skills. The modules are free for anyone to access and use.
