We are happy to announce the publication of OGD reports for Web Foundation’s first Open Government Data (OGD) project. We are publishing the reports on OGD feasibility studies in Chile (read the Chile Report) and Ghana (read the Ghana Report) developed in cooperation with our colleagues at Fundacion CTIC. We wish to thank all the reviewers for their valuable comments over the last few months subsequent to our publishing the draft reports.

The Web Foundation has been deeply involved in the OGD domain from the beginning, particularly through founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee and director Nigel Shadbolt, who continue to advise the UK government on the realization of data.gov.uk.  Given the apparent benefits of Open Government Data programs, it is important for us to consider the development of similar programs particularly in low and middle-income countries. This project is a first step towards this promising possibility.

The reports attempt to answer some major questions:

Is the country ready to engage in and maintain an OGD program?

If yes, how?

If not, why not? What should be done before they are ready?

More importantly they voice the opinion of people in the respective countries, and how OGD initiatives can make a difference. Encouraged by the findings, Web Foundation’s actions will now focus on how we can assist these countries to bootstrap such a process and assist the growing OGD community by providing tools, best practices and support. Your views and comments (to be sent to public-ogd@webfoundation.org) on these reports will be valuable for us as we take the next steps.

Thank you