Open data and sub-national governments : lessons from developing countries

This synthesis paper aims to refocus the discussion of open government data in sub-national contexts (provinces, cities, municipalities) by analyzing nine country papers produced through the Open Data in Developing Countries research project. Study findings show there is substantial effort on the part of sub-national governments and local level governance to proactively disclose data, however, the data quality and quality of access delimits citizen participation and use. Data quality remains a critical challenge in developing countries and tempers the potential impact that open data is able to generate