This toolkit is part of a larger effort by DataShift to strengthen organisational capacity to work with data in an actionable way through the Data for Action programme. It was developed to serve as a guide for organisations in thinking critically about survey data using spreadsheets. This toolkit was made possible with funding by the European Commission.

This resource has been developed for small- to medium- sized civil society organisations working with survey data. The instructions contained in this manual are designed specifically for data entry by a single user using one computer at a time. This is not intended to be applicable for large-scale data collection utilising multiple data entry personnel on multiple devices.

The Tanzania Parliament enacted Statistics Bill 2013 and among other things regulates how official statistics and data are collected and how they are used by government institutions, civil societies, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders. The act also imposes restrictions and penalties for

non-compliance. This guideline provides practical steps, so citizen generated data be recognised and  endorsement by the government and its institutions.

The enacted Statistics Act 2015 in Tanzania has become a subject of ongoing discussions by government and civil society. The Tanzanian government argues that this act is needed to facilitate and regulate

production, access and sharing  of  official statistics. Whereas some commentators in civil society argue the act is infringing on people’s democratic rights of collecting and sharing data. With this in mind, this report focuses on how civil society understands on the provisions of the Tanzanian Statistics Act 2015 and for CSOs to comply with the law and enhance the quality of their data and Statistics so that it can be considered for official policy and decision-making processes.

Centre for Sustainable Development has been working for fifteen years with local government to advocate and obtain land rights for slum dwellers in Nagpur, India. A key component of their work involves CGD, particularly community engagement, mapping and collecting the documents that establish the legitimacy of the slum dwellers claims. Despite their success, all parties were interested whether costs and processing times decreased by transforming thie mainly physical CGD process to a digital one. The findings suggest yes that technology could decrease costs and processing time, but it could only do so with greater local government and civil society collaboration.

DataShift seeks to foster and inform dialogue between civil society and governments about the practical ways citizen-generated data (CGD) can contribute to action on sustainable development, including the implementation and ‘follow-up and review’ of the global Sustainable Development Goals. This report delves into the opportunities and challenges involved in using CGD to support government-led efforts to catalyse and monitor progress on sustainable development.

A series of interviews were conducted to investigate how public data producers and users (such as National Statistics Offices and policymakers) perceive CGD. Participants included statisticians, public officials, and other relevant stakeholders working at the local, state, national, and global levels. While focusing on DataShift’s pilot locations (Argentina, Kenya, Nepal, and Tanzania), our study also brought in contributions of experts from international organisations – such as Open Data Watch, Paris21, and the UK Department for International Development.

Citizen-generated data (CGD) is data actively created by citizens and their organisations. It is produced to monitor, demand or drive change around issues that are important to them, often collected on the ground and in local contexts. As such, CGD yields the potential to foreground the issues of disadvantaged communities in under-reported locations. Yet, if the SDGs aim to leave no one behind, and if CGD can provide contextual information about marginalised groups, the question is whether and how CGD can be used for the SDGs. In this report, Acting locally, Monitoring globally in our research series,  we aim to address to what extent are the SDGs relevant for CGD initiatives.

From “From Evidence to Action“, the second piece in our Research series demonstrates how citizen-generated data (CGD) can support decision-making and trigger action. CGD is a representation of the issues that are most important to citizens. If evidence provided by CGD shall trigger action, the issue and its stakeholders need to be well understood. Stakeholders have certain capacities to engage with an issue, and are prepared differently to act upon it. Some actors may lack the literacy, knowledge, time, or interest to engage with complicated data. The task is for CGD projects to understand these nuances, and to translate their data into digestible, easily understandable, and relevant messages. The qualities of CGD need to match with the action that is planned.

This study is based on a combination of desk research and mixed consultations methods with a wide group of stakeholders, including citizen representatives, national and international campaigners, data producers, government officials, donors and international experts. In order to understand the relationships between  these  groups  and  how  their  perspectives  and  practices  regarding citizen reported data varied, multiple consultation formats were employed, including  group  consultations,  online  consultations,  individual  interviews and participatory workshops.  The results of these efforts were considered together with CIVICUS project staff on a running basis, and informed strategic decisions about study implementation, as well as  project strategies for the CIVICUS team.