Algeria’s Open Data Deficit: What Government Data Is Available, What’s Missing, and Why It Matters

The Promise of Open Data and Algeria’s Position

Open data is no longer a theoretical governance ideal. It is a foundational layer of modern economic infrastructure. Countries that publish machine-readable, regularly updated government datasets attract more foreign investment, enable startups to build data-driven products, and give researchers the raw material to produce policy-relevant analysis. The Open Data Barometer, maintained by the World Wide Web Foundation, consistently ranks nations with strong open data programs — the UK, France, South Korea, Canada — as leaders in digital governance and innovation.

Algeria, despite its ambitions to diversify beyond hydrocarbons and build a digital economy, has no central open data portal. There is no Algerian equivalent of data.gov (United States), data.gov.uk (United Kingdom), or even data.gov.ma (Morocco). Government datasets are scattered across individual ministry websites, often published as static PDF reports rather than downloadable CSV, JSON, or API-accessible formats. The result is a data environment where even basic economic indicators require manual extraction from scanned documents.

This is not a trivial gap. When the Algerian government launched its Startup Algeria initiative and the associated legal framework in 2020, it signaled a desire to foster a technology ecosystem. The program has since grown to over 2,300 officially labeled startups as of mid-2024, with more than 7,800 registered on the startup.dz platform. Yet that ecosystem cannot function without data infrastructure. Developers cannot build fintech products without accessible financial data. Urban planners cannot optimize transit without geospatial datasets. Researchers cannot model public health interventions without granular health statistics.

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What Government Data Currently Exists

The Office National des Statistiques (ONS) is Algeria’s primary statistical body, responsible for the national census, consumer price index, employment surveys, and demographic data. ONS publishes annual statistical yearbooks and quarterly bulletins, primarily as PDF documents available on its website (ons.dz). Some tables are available in Excel format, but there is no API, no bulk download facility, and no standardized metadata schema. Data often arrives with a 12-to-18-month delay — the most recent comprehensive employment survey available in early 2026 reflects 2024 figures.

Beyond ONS, several sector-specific agencies publish partial datasets. The Agence Nationale de Developpement de l’Investissement (ANDI) publishes investment statistics and sectoral reports. The Autorite de Regulation de la Poste et des Communications Electroniques (ARPCE) releases quarterly telecommunications reports covering subscriber counts, internet penetration, and licensing data — these are among the more consistently published government datasets. The Direction Generale des Douanes publishes trade statistics with reasonable granularity by product category and partner country, though again primarily in PDF format.

The Ministry of Finance publishes annual budget laws and some fiscal data, while the Banque d’Algerie releases monetary statistics and balance of payments data. Individual ministries — Education, Health, Energy — publish annual activity reports with embedded statistics. The common thread: data exists, but it is fragmented, non-standardized, often delayed, and rarely machine-readable. A researcher seeking to combine trade data with investment flows and employment statistics must manually download, clean, and reconcile datasets from five different sources with five different formats.

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What Critical Datasets Are Missing

The absences are as telling as the presences. Algeria publishes no real-time or high-frequency economic indicators accessible to the public — no monthly GDP estimates, no real-time inflation trackers, no business confidence surveys with public microdata. Geospatial data is particularly scarce: there is no open cadastral registry, no public geographic information system (GIS) layer for administrative boundaries at the commune level, and no open address database. The Institut National de Cartographie et de Teledetection (INCT) produces maps but does not publish open vector data.

Health statistics represent another critical gap. Algeria’s Ministry of Health publishes aggregate figures — hospital counts, physician density, disease prevalence — in annual reports. But there is no open dataset of health facility locations with geocoordinates, no public epidemiological time-series data comparable to what Tunisia’s National Observatory of New and Emerging Diseases publishes, and no machine-readable COVID-19 data archive despite the pandemic’s impact. Environmental data — air quality, water resources, desertification monitoring — is similarly locked within institutional reports.

Perhaps the most consequential missing dataset is a company registry. Algeria has no public equivalent to France’s Sirene database or the UK’s Companies House open data. Business registration data held by the Centre National du Registre de Commerce (CNRC) is not publicly accessible in bulk. This alone constrains due diligence, market research, and the development of business intelligence products. When entrepreneurs in Casablanca or Tunis can query open company registries to build B2B products, their Algerian counterparts cannot.

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Regional Comparison: Morocco and Tunisia Lead

Morocco launched data.gov.ma in 2011, making it one of the first open data portals in the MENA region. As of 2025, the portal hosts approximately 1,500 datasets from 40+ government bodies, with data available in CSV, JSON, and XML formats. Morocco’s Haut-Commissariat au Plan (HCP) publishes granular demographic, economic, and social data with interactive visualization tools. The country ranks among the top performers in Africa on the Open Data Inventory (ODIN) maintained by Open Data Watch.

Tunisia’s open data portal (data.gov.tn) was established after the 2011 revolution as part of broader transparency reforms. It publishes approximately 300 datasets and has an active civic tech community building applications on government data. Tunisia’s Instance Nationale des Telecommunications (INTT) publishes detailed telecom data, and the Institut National de la Statistique (INS) offers an API for accessing economic indicators.

Algeria’s absence from these rankings is conspicuous. On the Open Data Inventory, Algeria scores well below regional leaders like Morocco and Tunisia on both data coverage and openness dimensions. The Global Data Barometer (successor to the Open Data Barometer) places Algeria in the bottom quartile for government data availability. This is not about technical capacity. Algeria has the institutional infrastructure — ONS, ARPCE, ANDI, and others — but lacks the policy mandate, the legal framework (no freedom of information law equivalent), and the institutional culture to publish data proactively.

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Sources

• Open Data Inventory (ODIN) Country Profiles — Open Data Watch
• Global Data Barometer — Global Data Barometer Project
• Morocco Open Data Portal — Government of Morocco
• Tunisia Open Data Portal — Government of Tunisia
• ONS Statistical Publications — Office National des Statistiques
• ARPCE Quarterly Reports — Autorite de Regulation de la Poste et des Communications Electroniques
• ANDI Investment Reports — Agence Nationale de Developpement de l’Investissement
• Open Data Barometer Methodology — World Wide Web Foundation