Access to Information is Crucial to Helping Curb Famine in Africa

Famine is on the rise worldwide, with the total number of people facing severe hunger surpassing 100 million this year. Many African nations – particularly Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan – have been disproportionately affected in this influx, caused by the devastation inflicted on food growth by war and drought While free information and transparent policy frameworks would force governments to face public accountability and demonstrate results during such food crises, open data remains unreachable for most people in these countries. Thus, transparency will improve government response to famine in Africa only if more people are afforded access to information. The hunger crisis has reached unconscionable levels throughout Africa. In Somalia, 110 people died from starvation over the span of just two days in early March. The Somali government also declared a state of national disaster earlier this year because of severe droughts. They are not alone, as civil war and insurgency have sparked famine in South Sudan and Nigeria, respectively. Various governmental and nongovernmental organizations have given hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to these nations because of the food scarcity. But this aid is frequently abused by regimes in developing countries. Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan are no exceptions, with each being ranked “highly corrupt” by Transparency International – South Sudan and Somalia being ranked the most corrupt globally. Even when this money is not funding the personal exploits of government officials, it is often mishandled. According to Dominique Burgeon, director of the emergency division at the Food and Agricultural Organization, “A lot is going to food assistance and barely anything is going to help farmers who have decided to stay on their land.” This spending is wasteful and shortsighted. Open data is a public means to monitor – and therefore critique – how humanitarian aid is allocated by officials. Ideally, this makes spending more efficient and minimizes suffering in countries enduring famine. The G20 stressed this idea during its 2015 summit, developing six “Open Data Principles”  to promote public sector transparency and “enable decision-makers to design better policies” at the risk of having misconduct exposed. Ostensibly promising, this is ultimately impractical for a country like Somalia where only 1.7 percent of its people are internet users. Likewise, fewer than half the people in South Sudan and Nigeria can acquire data electronically. If citizens have no easy way to access government information, how would providing open data result in any more accountability than now? For open data to truly improve government response to these famines, data must be easily accessible. The movement to expand access to information must be fought in both the legal and technological arenas. Few countries in Africa have laws that adequately protect the right to obtain or spread information publicly. And in countries that do, as in Zimbabwe, laws are often crafted in a way that actually restricts access to information – a byproduct of "benevolent" authoritarianism. Without massive reforms in the next few years, short-term solutions to these legal obstacles must come from private institutions. International Media Support has made such strides in Somalia, providing twenty-five local correspondents a support system that allows them to more safely reach out to Somalis about humanitarian issues on various media platforms. Technological infrastructure generally remains weak in Africa. Seeing that research indicates higher internet use could lead to better government transparency, private campaigns to boost internet availability are as vital to improving access to information as are legal remedies. For example, the Free Basics program offers access to a limited version of the internet for free on mobile phones, carrying websites with basic information on healthcare, finance, public policy, and local news. This is especially important in countries like Somalia, where more than one-third of the population has access to mobile internet, far more than those with access to Wi-Fi. Free Basics was introduced to Nigeria last year, and has since generated well over 25 million users worldwide. The program has yet to reach Somalia and South Sudan, but this will hopefully change. While having limited internet access carries its own unique problems, it is certainly better than having no access at all. Increasing access to information in the developing world is essential to bridge the gap between the provision of open data and its actual value to the public. Therefore, the global access to information movement should be treated as an integral part of the solution to the growing hunger crisis in African communities. Although transparency does not harvest food directly, it leaves less leeway for leaders to mismanage humanitarian aid since citizens will know how their leaders are using it. Open data is important, and there still much progress to be made. But it is also imperative to not put the cart before the horse; establishing access to this data must take priority. Not being able to know is something the people of Somalia, South Sudan, and Nigeria simply cannot afford. About the author: John J. Martin is the Global Transparency Fellow at Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP). John earned his BA in International Relations from New York University in 2016. Photo source.