The ‘Harnessing Data for Democratic Development in South and Southeast Asia’ project currently being implemented by LIRNEasia is focused on data policy ecosystems in South and Southeast Asia taking into account both formal and informal policy and practice. The project also aims to expend the community of practice of Asian Data for Development practitioners and enhance the capacity of actors to participate in policy making processes and evidence-based policy influence related to data.

Data governance ecosystems are made up of policies, laws, practices, behaviours and technologies that govern data. Ideally, a data governance system protects rights, enables innovation, improves transparency, and ultimately brings about democratic, inclusive governance.

There are many existing and new such policies, laws and practices and tensions can arise when balancing conflicting needs. The areas explored in the research will include areas such as personal data protection, competition law, open data policies, cybersecurity, and AI and innovation policies

The project is being implemented under three work-streams:

Work-stream 1: Influencing the policy agenda in Asia -to create and mobilise new knowledge about tensions, gaps, and the evolution of the data policy ecosystem taking into account formal and informal policy and practice;

Work-stream 2: Expand a community of practice of Asian data for development practitioners across different sub-regions and sectors, including environment and climate change, data governance and justice/legal empowerment, Indigenous Rights, self-determination, and gender rights and inclusion

Workstream 3: Improve the capacity of actors to participate in national and international policy making processes related to data, and to enhance the awareness, skills, and knowledge of civil society, researchers, and media to engage in evidence-based policy influence related to data.

Under Work-stream 1, LIRNEasia will work toward the following objectives;

• Explore the existing and emerging data governance policies, laws, and bills in South and Southeast Asia to document the overall architecture and the intersections of and tensions among legal/policy regimes;
• Identify important gaps in the data governance ecosystem, and develop a common core of policies that are required for the emergence of a rights-preserving and innovation-enabling data governance system;
• Reach out to governments and key stakeholders/influencers to disseminate the knowledge in order to catalyse a more holistic data governance ecosystem in the countries of focus; and
• Identify the first cohort of young researchers and professionals working on data governance and to create a roadmap for developing them into policy intellectuals who can contribute regionally to creating better data governance ecosystems.

Research will be carried out to explore the above questions in the following countries: Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Seven consultants who are legal, policy, and regulatory experts in each of the selected countries above, are now working with LIRNEasia on the research.