The Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil (JCC), wish­es to ad­dress a crit­i­cal is­sue hin­der­ing our na­tion’s progress: the lim­it­ed pub­lic ac­cess to es­sen­tial da­ta gen­er­at­ed by pub­licly fund­ed agen­cies in Trinidad and To­ba­go. In­sti­tu­tions such as The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT), the Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Ser­vice, WASA, the Wa­ter Re­sources Agency (WRA), and the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs (IMA) all col­lect and/or pro­duce in-house da­ta/in­for­ma­tion vi­tal to our de­vel­op­ment, yet much of it re­mains in­ac­ces­si­ble with­out cum­ber­some ap­pli­ca­tions or cost­ly trans­ac­tions—even though cit­i­zens al­ready fund these agen­cies through tax­es.

While we rec­og­nize the da­ta.gov.tt web­site’s claim that “Trinidad and To­ba­go was the first Cari­com state and one of 66 coun­tries to join the Open Gov­ern­ment Part­ner­ship,” im­ple­men­ta­tion is gross­ly lack­ing.

This on­go­ing de­lay stands in stark con­trast with in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice. Lead­ing economies—both in the de­vel­oped and de­vel­op­ing world—have re­al­ized the enor­mous ben­e­fits of open gov­ern­ment da­ta. Across the USA, the UK, the EU, and OECD mem­ber states, open da­ta frame­works have un­locked new busi­ness­es, spurred job cre­ation, im­proved trans­paren­cy, and placed cit­i­zens at the heart of pub­lic ser­vice de­liv­ery. Re­cent OECD re­search con­firms that these re­sults are not the­o­ret­i­cal; GDP growth of 0.4 per cent to 1.4 per cent has been traced to the strate­gic re-use of pub­lic datasets. (McK­in­sey 2013)

Eco­nom­ic and so­ci­etal trans­for­ma­tion

For T&T, open ac­cess to crit­i­cal da­ta means more than trans­paren­cy. It can in­vig­o­rate lo­cal en­tre­pre­neur­ship, trans­form pub­lic over­sight, strength­en our ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor, and fu­el re­search that solves our unique na­tion­al chal­lenges. Open da­ta en­ables cit­i­zens and watch­dogs to mon­i­tor spend­ing, track pro­cure­ment, and hold of­fi­cials ac­count­able, while busi­ness­es tools to in­no­vate and com­pete glob­al­ly.(https://ict-pulse.com/cat­e­go­ry/ict-tech/)

A proven lo­cal ex­am­ple: OPR

Im­por­tant­ly, T&T is not with­out re­cent suc­cess­ful prece­dent. The Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion (OPR) has em­braced open source da­ta in ac­cor­dance with the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment & Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act of 2015. The OPR’s on­line pro­cure­ment de­pos­i­to­ry and re­sources pro­vides trans­par­ent and time­ly ac­cess to pro­cure­ment in­for­ma­tion, earn­ing wide­spread trust across both gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tors, and set­ting a gold stan­dard for open­ness and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Sys­temic change: lessons from abroad

First-world coun­tries have demon­strat­ed that sys­temic re­form is nec­es­sary for open da­ta suc­cess—re­quir­ing ded­i­cat­ed por­tals, ma­chine-read­able for­mats, and ro­bust da­ta gov­er­nance. Open da­ta must be the de­fault, not the ex­cep­tion. Caribbean ex­pe­ri­ences high­light that cul­ture change with­in gov­ern­ment agen­cies is equal­ly cru­cial. Ad­e­quate train­ing and in­cen­tives are need­ed so civ­il ser­vants rec­og­nize the pow­er and im­por­tance of shar­ing da­ta. (open­data­toolk­it.world­bank.org)

The age of Big Da­ta and AI: Miss­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties

As ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and da­ta an­a­lyt­ics rev­o­lu­tionise every sec­tor, the true val­ue of our pub­lic datasets now lies in the abil­i­ty to analyse, com­bine and share them in­no­v­a­tive­ly and se­cure­ly. With­out open da­ta, T&T risks miss­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for smart in­fra­struc­ture, pre­dic­tive agri­cul­ture, dig­i­tal in­clu­sion, and re­gion­al lead­er­ship in tech­nol­o­gy.

Clos­ing call

It is time for T&T to in­sti­tu­tion­alise open da­ta: mov­ing be­yond pol­i­cy rhetoric to man­date that all gov­ern­ment-fund­ed agen­cies re­lease their datasets freely and prompt­ly, with ex­cep­tions on­ly for le­git­i­mate pri­va­cy or se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns. This will not on­ly fos­ter in­no­va­tion and eco­nom­ic growth but al­so build last­ing pub­lic trust and pre­pare our coun­try for the de­mands—and lim­it­less pos­si­bil­i­ties—of the dig­i­tal era.

The JCC calls on pol­i­cy­mak­ers, agency heads and civ­il so­ci­ety to cham­pi­on sys­temic re­form. The fur­ther de­moc­ra­ti­sa­tion and open­ing up of pub­lic da­ta is not just good prac­tice—it is ab­solute­ly es­sen­tial for na­tion­al progress.

Fazir Khan is pres­i­dent Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil for the Con­struc­tion In­dus­try