“Unused data is useless, so let us make data useful,” Professor Winnie Mitullah, Afrobarometer core partner Director for East Africa has counseled at the Data for Governance Alliance capacity-building workshop for pan-African Civil Society Organisations (CSO).

The five-day workshop was aimed at promoting public data-based advocacy and engagement between pan-African CSOs and the African Union (AU).

The AU’s Agenda 2063 and its African Governance Platform (AGP) prioritise a citizen-centered approach to governance.

However, the lack of public awareness and access to data on citizen support for the agenda hampers its understanding.

“The Data for Governance Africa convenings aim at creating engagement platforms for collaboration between CSOs and the AGA organs in support of the Agenda 2063. We also seek to strengthen use of Afrobarometer data in Africa’s affairs, in particular in the areas of governance, human rights, and development,” Mitullah said.

In a series of three regional workshops in Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya, dubbed “Stakeholder Engagement on Democracy, Governance, and Human Rights in Africa,” 42 CSO representatives received practical training on accessing and using new data and information tools.

They explored public attitude data on Afrobarometer’s online data analysis tool and familiarized themselves with AU’s governance and law protocols on the online AGP repository platform. Other training modules included data analysis, data visualization, effective communications, and building evidence-based advocacy strategies.

The regional stakeholder engagements also served as a platform for pan-African CSOs to meet representatives from various AU entities, interact on their core mandates and explore avenues for collaboration.

Representatives from the AU African Peer Review Mechanism, the Economic, Social and Cultural Council, the office of the AU Youth Envoy, the Pan-African Parliament and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child attended the workshop.