A strong legislative or policy environment for data sharing can contribute to a collaborative environment to form partnerships. For example, California’s 2016 Open and Transparent Water Data Act shifted the state-wide culture around data sharing. It also demonstrated to partners the value of engaging in the California Data Collaborative (CaDC), which positioned itself as at the forefront of the open data movement embracing data science and machine learning. Though the Water Data Act did not apply to local water agencies, the pro-data sharing and reporting aims set out by the legislation enabled the CaDC to bring partners to the table to discuss sharing data to address ongoing challenges.
Advocacy also plays a role in setting up an agreement. In one example, Development Gateway’s experience showed that aligning a potential data sharing partnership with broader country goals, such as preparing for future AI-driven decision-making, convinced policymakers that spending political capital on advancing data sharing policies could help them achieve larger development aims. Thinking on these two levels—at the partnership and national level—is like “being in two places at once,” Development Gateway’s Deputy Director Beverly Hatcher-Mbu explained.
The CaDC in California made a strategic decision to remain neutral in state water politics to garner broad support among potential members. CaDC incorporated input from its diverse members on what data should be crunched and created analyses according to members’ needs but left using the analyses to individual organizations to lobby for legislative changes as they saw fit, remaining a neutral party focused on meaningful data-based tools and analysis, not political change.