Surveys as a public service: the need for a two-way flow of data

In recent years, South Africa has seen the emergence of ground-breaking portals such as Municipal Money, which provides information on finances for each municipality, and The Outlier, which explores policy issues such as COVID-19 and the elections through the lens of publicly accessible data. We have also seen growth in traditionally private-sector methodologies, such as design thinking, open innovation, and hackathons, to promote participation and innovation around data.