---
id: "govlab:project/project-open-data-in-developing-economies"
type: "GovLab project"
title: "Open Data in Developing Economies"
url: "https://thegovlab.org/project/project-open-data-in-developing-economies"
authors: ["Saroj Bista","Robert Montano","Prianka Srinivasan","Anirudh Dinesh","Andrew Young"]
summary: "What is the social and economic value of open data for developing economies?"
source: "The GovLab (thegovlab.org)"
licence: "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)"
---

# Open Data in Developing Economies

What is the social and economic value of open data for developing economies?

## Background

Recent years have witnessed considerable speculation about the potential of open data to bring about wide-scale transformation. The bulk of existing evidence about the impact of open data, however, focuses on high-income countries. Much less is known about open data’s role and value in low- and middle-income countries, and more generally about its possible contributions to economic and social development. The field lacks a coherent Theory of Change for how and in what contexts open data supports or hampers development.

## Description

This project seeks to build an evidence base identifying: a) the conditions under which open data is most (and least) effective in the development process; b) strategies to maximize the positive contributions of open data to development; and c) means for limiting open data’s harms on developing countries.

## Location

- Global

## Partners

- Web Foundation
- Mobile Solutions, Technical Assistance and Research (mSTAR)
- Program funded by the Global Development Lab at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

## Team

- [Saroj Bista](https://thegovlab.org/team.html#saroj-bista)
- [Robert Montano](https://thegovlab.org/team.html#robert-montano)
- [Prianka Srinivasan](https://thegovlab.org/team.html#prianka-srinivasan)
- [Anirudh Dinesh](https://thegovlab.org/team.html#anirudh-dinesh)
- [Andrew Young](https://thegovlab.org/team.html#andrew-young)