Labari Data Launches Fundi and Utabiri Public Tools

In Short

Labari Data has launched two public tools, Fundi and Utabiri. Fundi lets residents in Greater Accra log and track local infrastructure problems. Utabiri lets users forecast future events across Africa using a prediction market.

What Happened

Labari Data, the data arm of Labari Media, says it built both products around a simple idea, citizens often spot problems and trends before institutions do. The goal is to turn that everyday knowledge into usable public data.

The first tool is Fundi, focused on Greater Accra. It allows people to report issues like potholes, broken traffic lights, dead streetlights, blocked drains, uncollected waste, and open manholes. A user chooses the issue type, pins the location, and submits a report. Each entry becomes a public, dated record, and other users can confirm when the issue is fixed.

Labari Data’s bet is that a structured log is more useful than a one-off social media complaint. A public timeline can show how long a problem stays unresolved, and it can highlight hotspots where services repeatedly fail. This matters in cities where responsibility is split across multiple local assemblies and agencies.

The second tool is Utabiri, a prediction market. A prediction market is a platform where many people “trade” on outcomes, and the resulting price acts like a live probability. Users receive virtual currency to take positions on questions such as market share targets or political outcomes, with markets set to close on specific dates.

Why It Matters

For residents and civic groups, Fundi could make infrastructure reporting easier to verify and harder to ignore. For journalists, it creates a dataset that can be analysed over time.

For operators and investors, Utabiri is a signal tool. If it attracts informed participation, its odds could complement polls, expert commentary, and other research when tracking elections, telco competition, and major policy outcomes across African markets.