General overview of international open data initiatives
Fecha de la noticia: 08-12-2016
Knowing the open data initiatives that are currently being carried out in each of the regions of the planet can be a difficult task. Different languages and socio-economic contexts, cultural varieties, diverse policies for re-use of public sector information... The last edition of the International Open Data Conference, through a set of regional talks, became the ideal opportunity to learn about projects from all geographic areas: Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America and the Middle East and North Africa.
Then, the main conclusions drawn for each of the regional sessions are shown, where specific achievements and challenges were discussed, while the participants shared innovative initiatives for re-use and openness of information in different points in the world:
During the first Asia-Pacific Open Data Summit, in September 2015, a proposal was made to create an international partnership (Asian Open Data Partnership) in order to promote the openness of public information on the continent. To date, there are six countries that have already joined this consortium - South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand and Taiwan - to promote the development of applications based on open data, share information and resources, organize events and, of course, foster the cooperation between the member states.
During this session at the IODC, the panelists presented different open data projects in Asia, including One Data Indonesia, a program designed to improve the internal management of data within government organizations. In addition, thanks to the publication of the national policy on freedom of information, society's concern for transparency and accountability in the country has increased, being more aware of the value of open data to reach those goals. Thus, open data policies are spreading throughout the nation, making Indonesia climb to the 40th position in the global ranking developed by the Open Data Barometer.
Jeanne Holm of the World Bank and co-founder of the Africa Open Data Conference moderated the regional session dedicated to Africa that provided the opportunity to explore the successes achieved in the development of the open data community and the growth of open data ecosystems in African countries.
Attendees to this session were divided into five groups moderated each of them by an expert who selected the topics to be discussed. The members of the subgroups worked together to answer the questions suggested by the moderator of the talk, "What are the expected progress of the sector in Africa? O What are the obstacles to this progress?
The lack of standardization and harmonization; the lack of interest of the governments to show the real impact of the data or the digital divide of the continent in comparison to other points in the world were some of the problems that the participants of the IODC detected during this regional table. Attendees also mentioned the importance of social commitment and political opposition in making the openness of public sector information a reality everywhere in Africa. However, to this end, a dialogue between the government and the citizens was identified as necessary in order to work together to improve the quality, availability and accessibility of data, since, as it was said in the discussion: "Democracy is the root of transparency."
Since 15 years, the European Commission has been working on the development of data policies. In fact, it is expected that in the next 4 years the data economy will reach its highest growth rate, up to 40%, to date; with a total potential value of 75,000 million euros. With these data, Daniele Rizzi opened the panel dedicated to Europe during the last edition of the International Open Data Conference. A discussion where the two challenges that the sector faces in the region were addressed: boosting socio-economic development through open data and reviewing the European Directive on Re-use of Public Sector Information in 2018 with the goal of including specific guidance on data from areas such as scientific and geospatial information.
Norbert Hohn and Wendy Carrara presented the European Data Portal, which provides a single point of access to all the datasets generated by both the European Commission and the governments of EU countries. The two experts addressed the technical challenges of this project, such as the multilingual nature of the portal, the use of different data structures or the definition of new vocabularies. In addition, Wendy Carrara, coordinator of the portal, explained how the federation system of this platform works so the different European countries can publish their datasets and promote the re-use of national information internationally.
Open data ecosystem in Eastern Europe
This IODC panel discussed the role of open data in strengthening social cohesion in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The public distrust and disillusionment of the society in the last years in the region has made that the open data are being used like a tool aimed at improving the relation between the citizens and the government. In this context, during the session the attendees discussed the extent to which such developments have taken place in the region and what changes the global open data agenda has brought.
In response to these issues, the talk was attended by representatives from Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Kosovo and Serbia, who shared with the audience the open data projects of their respective countries, as well as the obstacles that the sector faces nowadays. In fact, several panelists agreed on highlighting the lack of public budget, as in the case of Serbia, and the lack of commitment by some administrations as the biggest barriers to avoid to make open data have a real impact in the region.
Open data ecosystem in Latin America and the Caribbean
Through a question and answer session, the regional talk on Latin America and the Caribbean brought together government leaders, academic experts, representatives of civil society and the private sector to reflect on the current state of the region in terms of government policies, achieved successes, and future challenges.
Several recommendations were drawn from this table in order to continue advancing in open data in the region, such as having an adequate legal framework in terms of access and openness of information, creating a robust and quality ecosystem to match the supply with the data demand, and defining new strategies for visualizing data to make the information easily understandable for any citizen to comprehend the true value of open data.
Open data ecosystem in North America
Canada, the United States and Mexico met to discuss the open data landscape in the region with a strong focus on how the three countries are working to implement data standards to improve their quality. The experts gathered there highlighted the variability and different dynamics that currently exist between national and local open data policies. Despite this diversity, in all three nations there is a great commitment to the sector, although a better interconnection between different levels of government is necessary.
Enrique Zapata, moderator of this session, concluded the meeting by highlighting the opportunities posed by a greater collaboration among Canada, the US and Mexico as well as the good work done in the region in relation to the already consolidated policies of open data; whose future should focus on the users and, in particular, identifying their needs to improve the quality of life of citizens through open data.
Open data ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa
Despite the fact that the Middle East and North Africa are still developing countries as regards open data, the IODC panel dedicated to this region shown interesting progress, such as the changes in the new constitution of Tunisia in 2014, that includes the right of citizens to access information or the need for local governments to follow the principles of open government in the cities of the country.
As the main conclusion of the round table, the panelists emphasized that there is still a long way to go in these countries to make the society be aware of the value of open data, demand the openness of public information and, therefore, its impact can be reflected in the common benefit.
If you are interested in learning more about open data initiatives in each region, all sessions are available on the Regional Talks playlist of the official YouTube channel of IODC.
