The Use of Data For Development Purposes

1. The Use of Data For
Development Purposes
Lesson learned for
Ethiopia's ‘digital 2025’ strategy
from the WBG MOOC on ‘Data for Better Lives: A New Social
Contract’

2. content
Introduction
The Economics and Politics of Data
and The Need For Data Governance
The Need for A New Social Contract
Lesson for Ethiopia

3. Introduction
• With the unpresented expansion of the internet of things and expansive trends
of digital economy, data is, currently, ‘the most valuable resource, even more
expensive than oil’.
• While the digital economy is open for all and everywhere, the high-tech nature
of the sector and its requirement for specialized skill and huge infrastructure
makes it hard for low-income countries to cope up with.
• Moreover, the digital economy and the future of capitalism is based on data (‘big
data’), which is technology incentive.
• Therefore, low-income countries, like Ethiopia, should make a policy shift
towards digitalizing the economy, investing in the necessary technology and
utilize both politics and economics of data.

4. Introduction …
• Understanding the gravity of the trend in the digital world, Ethiopia currently issued a
road map to digital economy called DIGITAL ETHIOPIA 2025 – A STRATEGY FOR ETHIOPIA
INCLUSIVE PROSPERITY.
• The digital strategy, among others, is aimed at proactively embracing the digital
revolution (‘the fourth industrial revolution’) in order to ensure the public and the youth
of Ethiopia succeed in it.
• In line with this, this year (2021) world development report focused on the role of data
in development and world bank group prepared a six-week online MOOC to broadcast
and popularize the importance of the topic; ‘Data for Better Lives’.
• As a final project for the MOCC this assignment attempts to unpacks the key take away
low-income countries (focused on Ethiopia) can take from the MOOC prepared by the
world bank group.

5. The Economics and Politics of Data and The Need For
Data Governance
• Data can be collected by different groups, individuals, civil society, academia,
government, international organization or private sector.
• Data collected by one entity can be reused by different entity for the same
purpose or different purpose than it was envisioned to be.
• While data collected and/or produces by different group can positively impact
development in the form of:
 By creating greater accountability
 Improving policy making and services delivery
 By increasing business opportunities in the economy

6. Economics and Politics of Data ….
• However, if data is not properly managed the production or the ruse of data
can create diverse socio-economic and political disruption. Because data can
be easily used for:
o Criminal activities and dark net
o For unnecessary political surveillance
o Creating artificial market concentration, widening inequality and creating
economic and political discrimination.

7. The Need for A New Social Contract
 In order to maximize the gain from data production and reuse the course proposes the need
for a new social contract to safeguard the participating parties.
 New social contract around data focuses on creating an ‘an agreement among all participants
in the process of creating, reusing, and sharing data that fosters trust that they will not be
harmed from exchanging data and that part of the value created by data will accrue equitably’.
 The nature of data, ‘competing claims on ownership, tensions between the wide dissemination
of data and incentives to accumulate more data for private commercial gain, and difficulties in
assessing the quality and accuracy of data’ makes it is difficult to practically defining economic
property right for data.
 Hence, countries in their territory, and the international community should formulate a data
governance based on the above defined ‘new social contract for data’.

8. Lesson for Ethiopia
• While the digital 2025 of Ethiopia clearly understand the need for the
shift in the macro and micro economic policy to focus on the data driven
future, it didn’t give a critical attention for the need for data governance.
• Therefor, the big lesson for Ethiopia from the MOOC is the need to
prepare and also incorporate a data governance approach in the strategy
which can maximize the economic and social values of producing and
reusing of data for private and public sectors.
• According to the finding of the report there are four building blocks to
focus on for descent data governance at national and international level:
 Infrastructure polices
 Laws and regulations
 Economic polices, and
 Institutions

9. What Ethiopia should
do to maximize the
gai from the data
driven future?
The four national level reforms needed and the building blocks
that can help to realize it the report and the course emphasized
which Ethiopia should take a lesson are the following:
Data infrastructure policies: Universal coverage of broadband
networks Domestic infrastructure to exchange, store, and process
data
Policies, laws, and regulations around data: Safeguards to
secure and protect data from the threat of misuse Enablers to
facilitate data sharing among different stakeholders
Economic policies for Data: Antitrust for data platform
businesses, Trade in data-enabled services, Taxation of data
platform businesses
Data governance institutions: Government entities to oversee,
regulate, and secure data Other stakeholders to set standards
and increase data access and reuse

10. Ethiopia’s Current
status and what to
prioritize?
• So far, Ethiopia is working on the third block on integrating data and
related economic trajectory in the national development strategy.
• The country should, therefore, prioritize the development of data
infrastructure (which the digital strategy acknowledged) and
organizing of dedicated data governance institutions at national
and regional level.
• Currently, Ethiopia ranks the least in all parameters of data
infrastructure among regional peers. Moreover, the country has no
dedicated public or private institution working on the data
governance.
• The current government policy towards the privatization of the
telecom sector and opening of the borders for cross country trade
requires the urgency of protecting individual and national data use
and reuses. Otherwise, the country will not compete in the global
market as well as narrowed down the prevailing inequality within
the nation and compared to other regional peers.

11. Thank you