This week, Mozambique launched its new portal which will enable public entities to publish data on infrastructure projects. They launched it with a flying start by embedding its use with young people through their collaborative event.

The platform provides detailed data on infrastructure projects, including information on procurement, implementation, timelines, costs and beneficiaries. This data is a valuable basis for analysis, monitoring and creating solutions that increase transparency and promote social engagement.

HackaTransparency Mozambique is a four-day initiative by CoST Mozambique to strengthen citizen participation in public infrastructure management, placing citizens at the centre of the transparency and accountability process. The theme for this hackathon was “Citizen Participation as a Pillar of Infrastructure Development: How to Turn Data into Impact.”

The hackathon supports people to transform data into practical solutions, encouraging people:

• trained people on understanding infrastructure data and using the playform;
• supported the development of citizen monitoring tools, interactive dashboards and other prototypes that promote social accountability; 
• Using OC4IDS – the CoST data standard;
• encouraged collaboration between journalists, academics, civil society and IT and infrastructure technicians. 

To embed this work, they promoted the event at universities, through partner organisations and also ran workshops on the platform. The hackathon has looked at vital aspects like detecting early warning signs in project data, measuring the impact of data and making the data accessible through methods such as text, whatsapp and USSD. 

Since its initial engagements, CoST Mozambique, hosted by The Road Fund, has undergone a critical phase of laying a foundation for implementing the CoST approach, tools and standards. The portal will inform implementation of an independent review process, strengthen multistakeholder working to engage for improved investment returns from infrastructure projects and a strong social accountability programme based on evidence-based data. 

During the week, CoST International Secretariat and CoST Mozambique also met with key partners including the World Bank, EU and FCDO. 

This builds on CoST Africa’s recent work in strengthening transparency, accountability and participation in infrastructure including Ghana’s first ITI, Kaduna’s new platform, a new impact story highlighting CoST Uganda’s work, and Kakamega and Zambia’s membership to CoST.