Can Open Data Keep Politicians in Africa Accountable? | Hacker News Reader

Can Open Data Keep Politicians in Africa Accountable?

3 pointstefo-mohapi10 comments

Serious question, given rulers like Uganda's Museveni who have been president for decades and yet living conditions haven't improved for citizens.

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Really doesn't make any sense here, I live in Algeria and the president here has edited the constitution to allow himself for more terms and he is literally unable to move a keyboard, and beside everyone knowing that in the country, nobody moves a finger and if he does, he will end up badly, so most of the times people know what is going on, yet they choose to do nothing because of fear, so open data, open government, open<insert government related thing> won't help really, the only choice i see in my country is to educate people, because compared to USA, people here are uneducated (not talking about college) people don't care, they can give up everything they have, which is really bad if you ask me, and i think that's the main cause of this, is the government as it made sure to insert ignorance and keep the people busy with shallow topics, now i know i have gone off-topic (I just hate to see my county going down), but just to say that as long as people don't care, nothing will help the corrupted government officials.

Don't you think fear plays more a part than just "not caring" and "ignorance"?

I certainly agree with you, but in that specific case I am seeing, those are the major players, there is other factors like being assassinated and kidnapped to nowhere, but that have decreased in my country in the last few years, in 2011, essential food prices has gone too high, and when the people went out and protested (it was a real mess), the government took actions immediately, but since the, they kept people busy with other factors, that prices have gone high again (higher than last time) yet no one is caring.

Machiavelli said of people that they were easily afraid, that between their little comfort and the insecurity of change they will chose their comfort and that money is the main thing that makes people go around.

This is why people in the arab world protested because of food prices, corruption had been known for years, and it's still there, but it's not enough to make people revolt, they had to get really hungry to get pissed off. It's also why the saudis gave 40 grands to each and every one of their citizen, it was a ''don't revolt'' bribe. It worked.

So if you're an authoritarian government who wants to keep power, all you have to do is use fear and money and you'll be mostly alright, problems arise once your military stops working in your favor and money dries up.

Applies to most of Africa

You're asking people in America where politicians aren't held accountable even if they poison thousands of children and take hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbyist money? will you get an answer from the country where Generals are assured a job in the private sector after they've done their best to allocate juicy contracts to their corporate handlers and made plan to start wars where the flow of money is more important than strategic wins? Personally I don't think you will get any good answer from the land of the greed and home of the hate/jailed.

"Open Data" is only as good as the quality and truthfulness of the data. I suppose the most likely outcome is that these politicians will get more sophisticated about data... so that they can fake it reliably.

That's always the risk --> "what if the data is rigged?"

I don't think it can. If witch hunts are still common and private armies are a thing as well as foreign powers intentionally destabilizing the region there is little open data can do.

I agree but have a glimmer of hope.

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