Deadline: 15-Feb-23
Apply for The Open Institute Trust’s Data Leaders Fellowship, a 6-week programme that will bring together selected Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) working at the subnational level to identify, harness and share knowledge and resources that will strengthen their advocacy using data and evidence.
It will further build their capacity on the data supply chain and data governance – bearing in mind both digital/data rights aspects as well as the importance of data in support of decision making in advancing development. After the 6-weeks, participating CSOs will then be engaged to undertake practical tasks on data governance issues from their counties for 6 months.
Grassroots Civil Society Organizations (herewith CSOs) play a critical role in ensuring citizen-agency. County governments should take advantage of the social capital, skills, and knowledge in CSOs to establish the mechanisms for interaction and co-learning to ensure better data governance practices that ensure data justice to all. But data governance topics are not well understood at the subnational level, as many CSOs have prioritized a sectoral focus on issues such as health, agriculture, water and governance. Consequently, there are few dialogues on data governance topics in the grassroots community.
Objectives
The main objective of this fellowship is to build the capacity of CSOs to use the right tools and techniques at the subnational level to promote data and digital rights as well as navigate and understand the use of data and evidence to demand accountability. This will be achieved through:
- Capacity Building
- There is a clear need to develop and implement a targeted county public awareness and education program on information rights.
- Strengthen social accountability
- Increasing data capabilities at the subnational level will help to improve the use of data and evidence in advocacy
- Forge new synergies
- Between government (official statistical systems), civil society and other stakeholders for data collection, analysis and them.
- Engagement practices
- Strengthen citizen engagement practices within the county and sharing of good practices across participating counties
Eligibility Criteria
- To participate in the CSO fellowship, the organization must be a registered entity. It must also provide its staff with a laptop and good internet connection. They strongly encourage organizations that are working with Marginalized Youth, Persons with Disabilities as well as Women and Girls to apply and participate. Further, they are looking for the following requirements for this fellowship.
- Participating Organization
- Ideally an organization whose work extends to working with Marginalized Youth, Persons with Disabilities as well as Women and Girls.
- The organization regularly engages with county governments on sectoral topics/issues including public budget cycles through public participation.
- The organization’s staff resides and works in the county.
- For nominated staff of the organization, there must be proof of the following:
- Must have at least 2 years of experience working with CSO/CBO’s.
- Have an understanding of county government’s processes and structures (particularly public budgeting and public participation)
- Minimum education- Diploma
- Have access to a good internet connection and a laptop.
- Experience in data collection, and analysis is an added advantage.
- Additional Skills Requirement.
- Conversant with Microsoft Office tools
- Excellent written and interpersonal communication skills
- Understands and displays diversity, equity and inclusion.
- Good report-writing skills
- Due to a high number of applications expected, only the shortlisted applicants will be contacted. Community Based Organization working in Nandi, Nairobi, Nakuru, Makueni, Samburu, West Pokot, Mandera, and Turkana are especially encouraged to apply.
- NB: Open Institute does not charge a fee at any stage of this process (application, interview meeting, processing, or training). The Open Institute will also not charge anything to all shortlisted participants in this fellowship.
For more information, visit The Open Institute Trust.
