Outbox Hub Receives $19000 Grant to Support Open Government Initiatives
Ugandan Technology incubation, collaboration and innovation hub, Outbox has secured a USD 19,581 from Indigo Trust, a UK based grant making foundation that funds technology-driven projects to bring about social change, largely in African countries.
The funds which are meant to support Open Government initiatives will be used to launch Manifesto Tracker, a web based data management and visualization platform that leverages on open data to track electoral commitments and accomplishments by tracking each manifesto against its related project.
The platform, according to sources, will maintain a list of all Government and individual promises made to the public. Each promise will subsequently be tagged to a Government project or multiple projects that lists the timelines, resources and budget required to realize each project.
In December 2016, the Government Assurance Committee raised concerns about the many promises made to the public during campaigns and through manifestos by especially President Museveni and other officials in different sectors which end up unfulfilled.
The platform will make sure each manifesto’s success can be measured by the success of each Government project to which it relates.
Statements made by political leaders can be fact-checked against the project facts that are accurately curated, thereby ensuring that leaders are held accountable to service delivery.
The manifesto tracker will also seek to work with journalists to support with the fact-checking of claims made by Government officials, politicians, or other individuals against the verified progress of promises and projects.
Speaking to PC Tech, Outbox Lead, Richard Zulu said that the project introduces a great aspect of openly monitoring the progress of what and how we are doing as a country.
“Manifesto Tracker introduces a great aspect of using data or facts to accurately monitor the progress we are making as a country. This also supports data driven decision making by key stakeholders,” he said.
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He however highlighted that the project is bound to face some challenges related especially to accuracy and timeliness of data and information reported.
“We are using open data or data publicly available in this project, therefore, we foresee large compromises in data authenticity and reliability. Therefore a number of data quality checks have to be in place,” said Zulu.
“With regards to various stakeholders like Government and civil society, we are definitely seeking endorsements to work with them as we see this as a project that complements their work.”
Photo Credit: Lions Africa
