Open Data in Africa: Where to Find It and How to Build on It

African builders can find free open data on openAFRICA, which listed 6,983 datasets on 5 November 2026, at the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, on World Bank country pages, and in satellite archives such as Copernicus and Digital Earth Africa. Most of it needs cleaning before it is useful, and that cleaning is where a product usually starts.

I co-founded Hackhouse, a builders' hub in Nairobi. This guide covers what counts as open data, the sources worth opening first, what to check before you build, and a five-step path from a public dataset to something a customer will pay for.

What is open data?

Open data is information anyone can access, reuse and share. For a builder, three conditions matter:

• Available: a file you can download or an API you can call.
• Licensed for reuse: an open licence that allows commercial use, stated on the dataset page.
• Machine-readable: CSV, JSON or GeoJSON. A scanned PDF of a printed table fails this test.

A lot of African public data meets the first condition and fails the other two. A budget published as a long PDF is technically public, and a builder who turns it into a clean, searchable table has created something people will use.

Where can I find open data for Africa?

openAFRICA

openAFRICA describes itself as Africa's largest volunteer-driven open data platform, with infrastructure built by Code for Africa. On 5 November 2026 it listed 6,983 datasets. Recently updated entries included sensors.AFRICA air quality archives for Nairobi and Nakuru, refreshed on 2 November 2026, with readings for particulate matter, temperature and humidity in CSV.

Kenya National Bureau of Statistics

KNBS publishes the Economic Survey, CPI and inflation figures, quarterly GDP and balance of payments reports, and Gross County Product. It also runs an advance release calendar, so you know when new figures land. For data that is not online, KNBS lists a data request address, [email protected].

World Bank Open Data

The World Bank's Kenya page offers more than 1,000 time series indicators across social, economic, environmental and institutional topics, with downloads in CSV, XML and Excel. Every other African country has a page in the same format, so you can compare markets before you expand.

Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem

The Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem gives free access to imagery and data from the EU's Sentinel satellites, covering land, ocean and atmosphere. You can browse and download in the Copernicus Browser, or use its APIs, including STAC, openEO and Sentinel Hub, to pull imagery into your own code.

Digital Earth Africa

Digital Earth Africa, a programme of icipe, turns Earth observation data into ready-made products for the continent. Its services include a cropland extent map, water observations from space, waterbodies monitoring, coastlines and vegetation indices. It offers a map viewer, a sandbox and a notebook repository for analysis.

What should I check before building on open data?

• The licence. Read it on the dataset page. If it is missing or unclear, email the publisher and keep their reply on file.
• Freshness. Check the last update date. A dataset that stopped in 2019 cannot support a product that promises current figures.
• Coverage. National averages can hide county gaps. Check whether the data covers the places your customers care about.
• Personal data. If a dataset identifies people, Kenya's Data Protection Act applies when you process it. Controllers and processors above set thresholds must register with the Data Commissioner, and some sectors, such as financial services, health and education, must register whatever their size (DLA Piper).

How do I turn open data into a product?

1. Start with a buyer and a decision. Name the person who will pay and the decision your product improves. For example, a lender deciding which farmers to finance, or a county officer planning where to drill boreholes.
2. Find the data that touches that decision. For the lender example, cropland and water data from Digital Earth Africa, plus rainfall history and county figures from KNBS.
3. Download a sample and clean it. Fix names, units and gaps. Write down every step, because the cleaning method is part of what you are selling.
4. Ship the smallest useful output. That could be a weekly SMS alert, a simple dashboard or a CSV delivered by email. Charge for it, even a small amount, to test demand.
5. Add what open data lacks. Your own field data, customer records or local knowledge make the product harder to copy than a public dataset alone.

Common business models include a paid API, a subscription dashboard, alerts sent by SMS or WhatsApp, and data cleaning services for organisations that hold messy records. If you want to test an idea with other builders, our events and communities are good places to find collaborators, and the Hackhouse Residency runs for 12 weeks and takes no equity.

What are the limits of open data in Africa?

Expect gaps. Some portals launch with a grant and stop updating when the funding ends. Some data is only published as PDF. Licences can be vague, and coverage is often thin outside major cities. Each of these gaps can also be a product: a cleaned and documented version of a dataset, a regular update service, or a local collection effort that fills a hole the public data leaves.

Key facts

• openAFRICA listed 6,983 datasets on 5 November 2026.
• KNBS publishes CPI, quarterly GDP and Gross County Product, and takes data requests at [email protected].
• World Bank Open Data offers more than 1,000 indicators for Kenya in CSV, XML and Excel.
• Copernicus gives free access to Sentinel satellite data through a browser and APIs.
• Digital Earth Africa offers cropland, water and coastline products for the continent.

Frequently asked questions

Is open data free to use commercially?

It depends on the licence attached to each dataset. Many open licences allow commercial use, sometimes with attribution. Read the licence on the dataset page before you build.

Where can I get Kenyan county data?

KNBS publishes Gross County Product and county figures in its reports. For data that is not online, write to [email protected].

Do I need data science skills to use satellite data?

You can start without them. Digital Earth Africa's map viewer and the Copernicus Browser let you explore imagery without code. Building a product on it usually needs someone comfortable with Python and geospatial tools.

Does the Data Protection Act apply to open data?

It applies whenever you process personal data about identifiable people, even if it came from a public source. If you are unsure whether a dataset identifies people, ask a data protection lawyer before you build on it.

Sources

• openAFRICA datasets, Code for Africa, checked 5 Nov 2026
• Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, KNBS, checked 5 Nov 2026
• Kenya data, World Bank Open Data, checked 5 Nov 2026
• Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem, European Union, checked 5 Nov 2026
• Digital Earth Africa, icipe, checked 5 Nov 2026
• Data protection laws of the world: Kenya, DLA Piper, checked 5 Nov 2026

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