European and Chinese private investments in Kenya may be exacerbating inequalities and diminishing development efforts in the country. As a result of this situation, a data-driven journalism project funded by the European Journalism Centre and the Innovation in Development Reporting Grant Programme explores the issue.

Land Quest is a cross-border investigative journalism experiment conducted by six European, Kenyan, and American journalists. The data reveals Kenya as the battlefield between two competing interests: the flow of aid money from Europe to Kenya and multinational profits from Kenya to Europe, Kenya’s second largest trading partner after China.

They have conducted a macro-level, data-driven study to map European private investments and returns in Kenya since 2007 (year in which its Privatization Law became operational). For this first stage of the process, the team relies on the support of the two Kenya-based journalists who feed data on European private land investments (agriculture and development projects on natural resources and land protection).

After having compiled this data, the project consists of the production of in-depth reports and visualizations in the form of case studies. These help put a face to the data. For example, Lake Naivasha is home to workers rights violations and environment damage:

Employers supervise the environment and the employees. There are no fines for producers that contaminate the lake or endanger the health of the individuals who spend the entire day hunched over the flowers, breathing in fertiliser and pesticides. Trade unionism is punished with dismissal or contracts are not renewed.

(excerpt from report)

Visualization

Interactive map which shows private sector and aid projects in Kenya.

About the data

As stated by Land Quest:

Data for this investigation has been provided by the Kenya Water Resources Management Authority in Turkana, Turkana National Environmental Management Authority, National Oil Corporation, Kenya Flower Council, World Bank, European Commission, Spanish Agencia Española para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo and the Spanish Nariokotome Mission. All data sets and relevant reports are available for further analysis and reporting on this site.

In Kenya, data requests were denied or ignored by the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum; Ministry of Mines and Geology; Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources; Chamber of Mines; National Environmental Management Authority (Headquarters), county government officials; UNESCO; the Tea Board of Kenya; and Tullow Oil Company.

The geo-mapping tools used for this project were implemented by Ecolab using Google Maps, Google Earth, Fusion Table, Crowdmap, Ushahidi, and Mapbox.

School of Data is pleased to introduce a new blog post series by Marta Conejo Sobrino, presenting case studies of data visualization projects in journalism and civil society.

Civio is a Spanish non-profit organization that fights for a stronger democracy. They are currently running six projects on transparency and free access to public data.

Your Right to Know

Your Right to Know allows citizens to petition Spain’s public institutions for information. There are no freedom of information laws in Spain. With such a scenario, no wonder why, in 2012, Your Right to Know obtained only 75 answers out of its 567 requests. They’ve submitted 1,058 requests since 2012.

Our Daily BOE

Our Daily BOE is a ‘readable’ daily update on the “only requirement those who govern must complete”: publishing BOE (government official announcements) documents on state budget approvals, changes in legislation, nominations, and subsidies. This easy-to-read BOE site has reached an average of 29,524 visits a month.

Who’s In Charge?

Who’s In Charge? is a map of public-private power relationships in Spain. As they put it: “We want both lobbying to be regulated and the highest positions of power to publish their complete work agendas.” They received the Testing123 Global Integrity Innovation Fund, an organization that invests in “brand new ideas that target the challenges of corruption, transparency and accountability”.

The Pardonometer

The Pardonometer is a compilation of all pardons granted in Spain since 1996. It has compiled 10,350 pardons into a set of easy-to-understand interactive infographics.

Spain in Flames

Spain in Flames gives the details on why thousands of hectares burn to a crisp every summer with no proper measures taken. We’re talking about the biggest database on forest fires (government investment on prevention, list of prosecutions, hectares burnt per year).

Where Do My Taxes Go?

Where Do My Taxes Go? is a tool that allows us to see how much money the General Administration of the State and Social Security spends and how they spend it in Spain. This interactive visualization provides data from 2008 until today. They have managed to analyze national and regional budgets (52 regions), but they still need help in compiling and visualizing local data.

Tools

Civio has created a unique API for the Pardonometer free for anyone to download. On their sites, in order to make it easier for others to pursue their own research, it is also possible to download the full data sets. For compilation and data cleanup, they’ve used Open Database License 1.0.