AGENDA

  • Day 2: Thursday, 30 August 2018

The paradox of data sharing

This talk will present the experiences gained from the practices in forest sector data in the Eastern Africa specifically in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique through the Eastern Africa Forest Observatory (OFESA) project implemented by Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) and CIRAD (Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement).

Data on forest cover trends and drivers of change is required for policy and decision making in support of sustainable forest management and forest conversion. It’s also required to monitor progress with forest restoration targets and initiatives to reduce forest cover loss like AFR 100 and REDD+.

The characteristics of data sharing

  • It’s an ad hoc basis
  • Few institutions have written data sharing policies
  • Additional requirements in some cases

The main barriers to data sharing are the fear of data abuse and becoming irrelevant/losing competitive advantage, lack of data sharing policies and data sharing restrictions. But these challenges can be overcome through using incentives, capacity building and having a data sharing policy and framework.