Stewardship Regimes within Kenya’s Open Data Initiative and Their Implications for Open Data for Development

Reilly and Alperin (chapter 2, this volume) argue that there are a variety of ways that open data can be connected to meaningful use, depending on the actors and stewardship regime that manage the data. The concept of stewardship adds to the open data scholarship by emphasizing open data intermediation and asking whether powerful actors engage in intermediation strategies that align with the types of social values that citizens prioritize. Thus, identifying stewardship regimes involves uncovering and confronting actors’ power and position, values and relationships, and how and why the needs and wants of others (who might benefit from open data) go unmet. In this reflection, we contemplate the potential of the stewardship approach to better understand an open government data initiative. We draw on research conducted on Kenya’s Open Data Initiative (KODI). The initiative’s purpose, as defined by the Kenyan government, focused on increasing access to government data sets by making them available in free and easily reusable formats, with the aim of increasing government accountability and transparency (ICT Authority 2017).