South Africa ranked 46th, with a score of 34 out of 100, in this year's Open Data Barometer - up one place since the last barometer.
This is according to the fourth edition of the Open Data Barometer, released by the World Wide Web Foundation yesterday.
The report covers 115 countries, ranking them based on four pillars: legal and regulatory environment for opening up government data; implementation of open data; the number and types of datasets that are open; and the impact that open data is having on business, politics and civil society.
Open data is data that is available for everyone to use and reuse, and allows citizens to hold governments to account for the decisions they take and the money they spend.
The study found early open data leaders are stalling, and even backsliding, in their delivery of open data. In SA, some key government data, such as national maps, land registries, government spending and environmental data is not available online at all.
The scores of high-ranking Nordic countries and the US (ranking fourth) have fallen this year. Although the UK remained in first position, the research reveals the country has seen worrying changes in key open data policies.
"Globally, fewer than one in 10 datasets studied are fully open - unchanged from last year - showing that most countries are failing to make any progress on delivering vital public information. Data on key accountability metrics, such as government spending, public contracts, company ownership and land ownership, are among the least open and often poor quality. Government spending data is open in just 3% of countries," the study reveals.
Carlos Iglesias, senior open data researcher at the World Wide Web Foundation, says in terms of readiness, SA suffers from a lack of sustained political commitment to realising the potential of open government data.
"The South African government must lay the groundwork for the publication and use of open data to thrive. For example, right now there is no dedicated policy in supporting open data. The country's policy on right to information - which is separate but related to a right to open data - could be strengthened as well.
"Beyond having specific policies in place for publishing open data, SA also needs to put a data management policy in place. This means having a standard way for handling all data collected and processed by government to ensure it is treated and published uniformly across every department and agency in government," he explains.
Tiyani Nghonyama, COO of skills development at Geekulcha, says SA's government and most local organisations fail to acknowledge the value of data utilisation, which leads to mishandling or poor care of the data.
"Our government needs to invest in good data management skills and we still need better processes of data capturing, analysing and reporting to give account to the public. Mishandling of data leads to different inaccuracies and loss of integrity of the data we seek to use for critical decision-making."
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