Innovations for the curation and sharing of African social survey data

Abstract

A substantial amount of data is collected through surveys conducted in Africa by national statistics offices, international donor organisations, research institutions, and the private sector. Data management at African national statistics offices is hampered by limited resources. An option for data curation in African countries is the establishment of dedicated institutions for data preservation and dissemination, such as survey data archives, and research data centres. DataFirst, at the University of Cape Town, has established an African data service and is helping to improve African data curation practices through providing data, promoting free curation tools, and undertaking data management training in African countries.