A Policy Vault Made for Africa - The Nation Newspaper

An exciting idea turned into an interesting organization that will open Africa to development opportunities and investments, writes OLUKOREDE YISHAU

In early April, after finishing his capstone project, Ridwan Sorunke had his eyes set on the future outside Johns Hopkins University. He reached for his diary. He wanted to turn his long-time idea into a nonprofit that will enable co-governance for all people in Africa. At the center of his idea is an important question: how do we access policies across all sectors across all countries in Africa?

He wanted to help governments in Africa find solutions to a perennial problem that has an international dimension.

At the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where Sorunke spent two years studying International Economics with concentration on Africa at a graduate level, he conceived Policy Vault Africa—the first online repository of government policies and regulations across all sectors in all countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Africa is rising. Africa is on the move. Africa is innovating. But there is something missing,” Sorunke says. “The policies and regulations that will sustain the rise, the move and the innovations are not accessible.”

That insight formed the basis for setting up Policy Vault Africa. Through recognising that they have a common attachment to the continent where they grew up and yearnings for solutions to Africa’s myriad problems, five of Sorunke’s friends with whom he attended Johns Hopkins University at the same time toed his line of thoughts on creation of a vault, where policies and regulations by Africa’s national governments can be accessed globally, unhindered.

In Africa, public policies are not public. The challenge is with the national governments. After creating laws, they are kept inside a dingy and decrepit office cabinets where tons of files are piled together.

This poor way of keeping records, particularly policies and regulations means those who can use them to spur rapid economic growth and development are not able to do so.

“What’s so exciting about this innovation is that with a click anyone from anywhere in the world can access policies and regulations in Africa,” says Adeola Akinremi who leads communications for the organization from its Washington D.C office.

Akinremi, a former editor at Nigeria’s ThisDay with strong knowledge of how policy instruments work, says: “This will help position Africa as a place where development work is easy and market entry for investors is simple. We provide policy briefs to international nonprofits seeking reforms, support policymakers to scale up policies and help investors identify policies that are critical to their investment interests.”

It is not surprising to see why Africa is courting the world’s attention. Its population jump and young demography makes it an interesting place for development interventions and investments.  But leaders in Africa need to scale up policies that will drive growth, while making those policies accessible to citizens, investors and researchers who are finding ways to contribute to governance or need to understand regulations around their work.

In most African countries, the transition to digital has not even been made. Many policy files exist only in dusty cabinets sitting in poorly ventilated offices, with no access by those who could use them impact on development. And, in other cases, governments simply refuse to release data on how they are running their societies; when they do, it is in arcane language that seeks to befuddle rather than clarify.

The status quo has led to a paucity of information on the continent. Researchers, investors, journalists are usually left scratching their heads and forced to rely on third party, external data – The World Bank, the United Nations – in their bid to determine the direction governments are heading. This is not enough. There is an urgent need to put the continent’s public policies into a space that is universally accessible, safe and properly delineated in order that those who need the information can have it, be able to make sense of it and use its utility to transform the continent.

One way to do this is using new communication technologies, which are becoming quite popular in Africa. According to a publication by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Panos Institute West Africa, “the widespread use of ICTs offers both governments and citizens the potential to address traditional development and governance issues in a new, innovative fashion.

“From the viewpoint of governments, ICTs are a catalytic tool to promote services to the most marginalized populations, thus helping achievement of the MDGs, while enhancing transparency and accountability. From the point of view of citizens and stakeholders, they can benefit by having access to new communication channels and thus having ‘louder’ voices in decision- and public policy-making processes.”

Policy Vault Africa to the rescue

As a new policy-focused organization, Policy Vault Africa plans to “serve as a platform for policy data, which have historically been difficult to access by African citizens, civil society, researchers, and investors” said Timi Iwayemi, the Lead Director of the organisation.

On its website, the organisation is unambiguous about its mission to enable stakeholders to search for any policy in any sector in any country in Africa.To achieve its objectives, the organisation leverages a wide network of partners and analysts on the ground in Africa and then compile, verify, clean, and upload key government policies across Africa. In turn, users can then search for those policies, regulations and investment guides; and they can also request for unavailable documents across sectors and countries. The Policy Vault Africa can equally help to track updates on specific policies, including strategic advice on policy engagements.

In essence, the organisation is attempting to use technology to solve one of Africa’s most intractable problems – information management and analysis.

Obviously, if Policy Vault Africa succeeds in achieving its hugely lofty goal of providing access to policy and regulations “in any sector across any country in Africa”, transparency will shoot up in Africa; and with higher transparency comes a harsher spotlight on corruption and the ability to hold leaders more accountable for their actions and its effects on their publics.

Policy Vault Africa, despite being new, has already accomplished a great deal of work with awards. On its website, the organization confirms it already has more than 2,000 policies and regulations from African countries. From its analytics, the responses from academic institutions, philanthropic organisations, non-profits, national governments and investors have been positive.

Already, the organisation has analysts in countries such as Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria with additional staff in Washington D.C

“This is a great opportunity for African national governments to scale up policies that bring development because Policy Vault Africa is a see through window for global partners who desires to engage with Africa on democratic development, economic reform and investments,” according to Timi Iwayemi, a director at the organisation.

“the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) ­– a group that supports human rights, rule of law and democracy in more than 60 countries – found a nexus between the work of our organization and its own commitment to Africa,” he says.

And Timi Iwayemi believes there are more of such institutions “that demonstrate the interconnectedness of our work in Africa ­– in research, policy, advocacy and development.

Since the organisation’s website went live, the highest traffic has come from the research environment which means students, academics and think tanks – the go-to organizations for proposals and policy advice on key economic, health, security, social and environmental issues – have subscribed to use Policy Vault Africa.

Policy Vault Africa has the potential to transform how African governments make and improve their decision making, and also how those policies are engaged with. There is little doubt that a democratic public policy space in Africa is imperative for the acceleration of sound policy-making across the continent, which will inevitably lead to more infrastructure, better education and healthcare, improved security and, indeed, a superior quality of life for everyone on the continent.

Its growing pool of information will make it easier and faster to know how governments are tackling various social and economic issues which affects the lives of billions of people and, inevitably, the entire planet. Beyond that, its work will also drive collaboration between governments, improving learning outcomes about what works and what doesn’t.

The organisation hopes to be sustainable through subscription fees. However, to scale faster, it will require support from institutions who are willing to support initiatives that can help transform the continent.