gobierno abierto

The Web emerged more than 30 years ago as an open, participatory and inclusive network that encouraged access to and reuse of knowledge through a spirit of collaboration and constant experimentation. This is precisely the same concept and philosophy that the government open data community adopted a few years after its birth.

Today we can observe how a new application of that same philosophy is gaining an increasing relevance, driven again by public administrations through digital public goods. This time the original principles of collaborative development, free access and reuse of open government data are expanded to other digital assets under the same criteria as a logical evolution.

What are public digital goods?

The concept of digital public goods is inspired by this same initial objective of the Web and the philosophy of various other movements such as open source, open data and open knowledge, extending it to any digital good of potential public interest - that is, those that, because of their potential to contribute to sustainable digital development, should be freely accessible and usable and that can be materialised in different formats, such as software, datasets, artificial intelligence models and algorithms, norms and standards, or a variety of digital content. Among their advantages are that they are scalable and adaptable, transparent, interoperable, minimise redundancy and fragmentation, enable cost savings, facilitate collaboration and foster innovation.

In short, it is about building a digital commons for all humanity that we can enjoy and manage in a coordinated and joint way for the good of society - just as we already do today with other elements of our analogue heritage such as the oceans, Antarctica or outer space.

The United Nations considers digital public goods in its roadmap for digital cooperation as an essential element in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and, according to the World Economic Forum, they will also be key to tackling the world's major challenges. But this will require a coordinated global effort to enable, facilitate and promote the creation of these assets. In this respect, some prominent actions in this direction have become visible in recent years, such as the Digital Public Goods Alliance, the Digital Public Goods Charter, the AI Commons ecosystem or, in the specific field of data, the Global Data Access Framework (GDAF) - which aims to transform the discoverability of data by defining a global platform for data sharing together with several standard protocols for data exchange.

Digital public goods initiatives

A clear example of the work being carried out is the Digital Public Goods Standard (DPG Standard). This standard defines the nine qualities that a digital asset must meet in order to be considered a digital public good:

1. Relevant to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
2. Use of appropriate licences for open access.
3. Platform independence.
4. Clear definition of ownership.
5. Complete and appropriate documentation.
6. Mechanisms to support data extraction.
7. Compliance with privacy rules and applicable legislation.
8. Adoption of benchmark standards and good practices.
9. Harmless design that takes into account privacy, security, legality of content and protection against abuse.

In addition, there is a repository of public digital goods that is fed by contributions from all stakeholders and organised according to the development objective to which they can contribute. Thematic reports highlighting some of these digital public goods for their potential to address critical needs in specific sectors such as financial inclusion, health or climate change are also available.

According to the UN, all these new collaborative initiatives will also play a key role in further developing and evolving the necessary common standards and norms. This will also help guide both the public and private sectors on the best ways to facilitate access to their data and enable more data to become digital public goods, while respecting data privacy and confidentiality and significantly improving trust in technology. On the other hand, digital public goods are also valuable components for building countries' digital infrastructure in a reliable, secure and inclusive way - such as payment or identification systems - and thus enablers of digital sovereignty.

Finally, an interesting example of how all these concepts have also been applied in recent years by the European Commission is Joinup: the European Union's collaborative platform for the development of interoperable, open and free ICT solutions. Through this platform we can find multiple examples of a variety of public digital goods such as software solutions, standards or educational content.

Content prepared by Carlos Iglesias, Open data Researcher and consultant, World Wide Web Foundation.

The contents and views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author.

The Open Government Week, organised by the Open Government Partnership in the framework of Open Gov Week, is taking place this year from 27 June to 1 July 2022. The aim of this initiative is to open up and bring public administrations closer to citizens, based on the Open Government principles mentioned above.In Spain, this initiative is promoted by the Directorate General for Public Governance, in collaboration with the Open Government Forum.

As usual, this year's Open Government Week will feature numerous events organised by public administrations throughout Spain. Due to health circumstances, some of these activities will still be held in a virtual or semi-presential format, along with other events that will be held exclusively in-person.

Online webinar on 29 June to learn about the Data Office and the Aporta Initiative

You can watch the presentations of the event here:

Among the types of activities that will take place during this week, we can find some of a diverse nature such as presentations of government plans and programmes, citizen consultations and participatory processes or open days, among others. Of all of them, we would like to highlight the event to be organised by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation so that citizens can learn more about the Data Office, and also find out more about the Aporta Initiative of datos.gob.es.

This event, which will be held via an online webinar on Wednesday 29 June, from 12:00 to 13:30, will consist of two parts: one dedicated to further information about the Data Office and the other aimed at disseminating the activity of the datos.gob.es portal.

Part One: Data Office

The Data Office, part of the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, will be the protagonist of this first part of the online event. They will try to explain how they are addressing the main challenges that exist today in the data economy, defining the legal and political frameworks for data sharing and governance.

The European Union has established as one of the next priorities the promotion of the data economy, and one of the measures that our country has carried out to achieve this goal has been the creation of the Data Office. In this webinar you will be able to learn more about the functions of this body and how it can intervene to promote data sharing as a means to boost the data economy.

Specifically, the Data Office is focused on enabling data sharing through the deployment of data spaces. The data space is key to the development of the data economy, enabling its access, exchange and legitimate re-use, positioning data as a non-rivalrous resource, whose utility grows as its use becomes more widespread in a clear example of the network effect. Data spaces go beyond the bilateral exchange of information, constituting in their most advanced version authentic sharing networks where the value of data is realised.

Part Two: Aporta initiative/datos.gob.es

The second part, which will focus on the Aporta initiative, will be aimed at raising public awareness of the value of open data as a key element of open government and what actions are being taken to encourage its publication and use.

Open data is a key element in driving the data economy. Spain is at the top of the European open data maturity index. In this virtual event you will be able to discover what underlies the philosophy and practice of open data, and what services are offered from the datos.gob.es platform as a one-stop space for reusable data offered by the public sector, among other aspects.

You can follow the event through this link.

Other events of interest of the Open Government Week 2022

Although you can consult the full calendar of events that will take place during Open Government Week at this link, below is a small selection of events related to topics such as open data, transparency, open government and citizen science, among others.

• 30 June. "Reuse of public sector information beyond open data" (online), University of Valencia, PAGODA: this seminar will analyse, among other issues, how the dynamics of traditional Open Data environments raise questions about the purpose of data use, attribution and traceability of such uses.

• 27 June. Open Government for All (semi-presential), State Secretariat for Public Administration, Madrid: this event will address the project on Collaboration for Inclusive Communication in Open Government, the result of the agreement signed between the Third Sector Platform and the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration.

• 29 June. “Presentation of the Open Government Digital Portal of the Fuenlabrada City Council” (in-person), Auditorium of the CIFE - Avda. de las Provincias, 33, Fuenlabrada: description of the new sections of the portal: transparency, open data, participation, economic and infrastructure viewers, etc. Thanks to them, the city council will be able to be accountable more accurately to citizens and they will be able to access administrative information of municipal relevance in an easy and understandable way.

• 29 June. "Open government, transparency and public service in the face of the demographic challenge: citizen services aimed at all Madrid city councils" (online), General Directorate of Cadastre. Regional Cadastre Office of Madrid: this informative session will provide information on the multi-channel offer available to the General Directorate of Cadastre, enabling universal access to cadastral information and the provision of face-to-face information services.

In short, initiatives such as Open Government Week allow citizens to increase their knowledge of and participation in public administrations. Remember that this is just a small selection of events, but you can consult them all on this map.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is an initiative created in 2011 whose main objective is to promote open government. To do this, it focuses on ensuring that different governments reach concrete commitments in order to promote transparency and the power of citizens, fight against corruption and take advantage of new technologies to strengthen governance.

It was originally created by eight countries (Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, the Philippines, Norway, the USA, South Africa and the United Kingdom), although it currently has 70 member states and numerous non-governmental organizations. All of them join forces to face five major challenges, around which the commitments they make must be structured:

1. Improvement of public services
2. Increased public integrity
3. Effective management of public resources
4. Creating safer communities
5. Increased corporate responsibility

What is the role of open data in OGP?

The Open data is a fundamental aspect to achieve an open government. It should be remembered that open government is based on 3 pillars: transparency, participation and collaboration. The opening of public information promotes both the pillar of transparency, by facilitating access to information and the monitoring of public policies, as well as participation and collaboration. The opening of data and its reuse allow civil society, companies and organizations to work more easily together, as well as create new products and services of value.

In this context, it is not surprising that the Open Government Alliance promotes open data in two ways:

• On the one hand, it is promoted that the member countries of the alliance reach commitments related to open data in their national action plans, in general, but also in specific areas. For example in2021 promotes the expansion of open data to expose the salary differences between men and women, as well as to promote the opening of health data, something in high demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• On the other hand, the OGP itself facilitates access to the enormous amount of data it collects, through different databases available in various formats with Creative Commons License (CC BY 4.0). Its objective is that governments, civil society, academics and journalists can use this information when conducting research, analysis or reports.

The Open Government Partnership databases

Next, we detail the types of databases that this initiative makes available to your community:

OGP commitments

It includes information on the content and development of all the commitments made by the OGP since 2011. This data, which is updated daily, comes from the OGP action plans and the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM), which provides independent and based reports. In evidence in order to monitor the efforts carried out by the participating organizations.

• Formats: Google sheet, xls (Excel) and csv.

OGP processes

It contains information about how the members of the Open Government Alliance adhere to the processes and rules of the OGP, information that is also derived from the IRM reports. It includes data on the levels of public influence in the development of action plans or the existence of online repositories, among others.

• Formats: Google sheet, xls (Excel) and csv.

Open government

This database offers data on the performance of OGP members in 14 areas of open government, such as anti-corruption, civic space, and fiscal openness. The data addresses more than 50 indicators from 10 data-producing organizations, as well as including action implications for each member of the Alliance.

• Formats: Google sheet, xls (Excel) and csv.

Data guide

These are definitions for the indicators included in the Commitments, Processes and Open Government databases. The definitions are reviewed and updated annually to include any variables that may arise.

• Formats: Google sheet, xls (Excel).

Eligibility Scores

It collects the level of compliance of governments to various key dimensions, such as the fiscal transparency, the access to information or the citizen commitments. Eligibility scores are updated by the Support Unit during the first half of each year. You can access the different indicators here.

Data visualizations and tools

In addition, the OGP also has various tools to bring data closer to organizations and citizens. One of them are OGP Member Pages, which contain country-specific information on open government beyond the Alliance.

A panel will also be available soon where users can work with the data, sorting it by policy area, region, and year, in addition to downloading subsets of data.

If after reading this article you still have questions about the data offered or how it can be used, the Open Government Alliance makes the email address available to all users research@opengovernmentpartnership.org to which you can refer any query in this regard.

At the end of last year, the IV Open Government Plan for Spain was published, which included a series of commitments that public administrations undertook related to accountability, improved participation or open data and the reuse of public information, among other aspects. The objective: to contribute to a fairer, more peaceful and inclusive society.

In this article we will review the strategies linked to open data of the Autonomous Communities and the commitments made in this plan.

Access the accessible version

Andalusia

The Junta de Andalucía's open data portal has 4 objectives: Transparency; Innovation and economic growth; Efficiency and effectiveness of the administration; and Inclusion and empowerment of citizens. Its actions are framed within the Junta de Andalucía's Open Government Action Plan.

Its future plans are the implementation of formalised openness mechanisms, both technical and organisational. High-value datasets will be selected, common vocabularies will be defined and permanent contact will be established with the community of re-users to encourage re-use. Methodologies and processes for data-driven decision making will also be enabled, and a training plan on Open Government and open data will be carried out, especially targeting administration staff.

Asturias

The data catalogue of the Principality of Asturias is integrated in its Open Government area and its activity is framed within the Law of the Principality of Asturias 8/2018, of 14 September, on Transparency, Good Governance and Interest Groups.

The Asturian Government has committed, in the IV Open Government Plan, to the elaboration of the Strategic Transparency Plan of the Principality of Asturias (PETPA) with measures that contribute to the compliance with the Asturian Law 8/2018. This Plan will also include mechanisms for training, awareness-raising, participation, monitoring, control and evaluation in the field of Transparency.

Aragon

The Aragon Open Data Strategy focuses on two pillars. On the one hand, promoting interoperability, through the Interoperable Information Structure of Aragon EI2A. On the other hand, active listening, with actions such as Aragon Open Data Focus, aimed at getting to know publishers and users of open data better (more information in this interview). In their strategy they propose a model and a roadmap defining the mission, vision and values of Aragón Open Data:

• Mission: to be the catalogue from which citizens and companies can access the set of open data offered by the Government of Aragon and other institutions.
• Vision: to provide a treatment of information systems that not only generates wealth, but also develops and consolidates the infomediary sector to improve the social and economic development of the region.
• Values: quality, interoperability, participation, coordination, collaboration, transparency and accessibility.

Canary Islands

The Canary Islands have committed to centralising the public data of the different administrations of the islands in a single access point (called Canarias Datos abiertos), with the aim of improving the location and accessibility of the information, applying processes of standardisation of formats and ensuring interoperability, among other reasons.

Its commitments also include promoting participation, through a Canary Islands Open Government Network as a meeting point for the bodies of the Canary Islands Public Administration. All of this will be reflected in the Open Government Strategy for the Canarian Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030, recently presented.

Castilla y León

Castilla y León is a very active region in the open data ecosystem, with a special focus on dissemination and awareness-raising. It is currently running the fifth edition of its open data competition to promote the reuse of its datasets.

In the IV Open Government Plan, they are committed to approving a new law and drawing up a catalogue of public information, already approved, where the commitment of each organ, body and public entity of the regional public sector is materialised. The aim is to increase the volume of relevant, clear and structured public information to be actively disseminated.

Castilla y León is drafting the new Law on Transparency, access to public information and its reuse, which includes the so-called "Open Data clause": any IT development, whether carried out with its own or external resources, must facilitate the extraction of the information collected, recorded or collected in reusable formats.

Castilla - La Macha

The "Open Data of Castilla-La Mancha" space is the result of Law 4/2016, of 15 December, on Transparency and Good Governance of Castilla-La Mancha. Castilla-La Mancha's strategy has focused on constant openness and training. Since 2017, a Training Plan has been approved which includes specific courses on open data and reuse of information aimed at public employees. In addition, through a collaboration agreement with the University of Castilla-La Mancha, the Specialisation Course in Open Government (previously called Transparency and Access to Public Information) is being developed, which includes, among others, the subjects of access, open data and reuse of public information.

Among the objectives to be addressed in the coming months is the development of an improvement plan for its Open Data space, which will include advances in the visualisation of information, the incorporation of high-value data and data governance, among other issues.

Cantabria

Cantabria does not have a centralised open data portal for the whole territory, although we can find the ICANE (Cantabrian Institute of Statistics) open data space focused on the opening and reuse of statistical data. They also offer the possibility of downloading cartographies and geographic information from their geographic viewer.

In the 4th Open Government Plan, they have focused on the area of citizen participation, committing themselves to drafting a new law that establishes the material channels and provides information and knowledge to citizens, with the aim of motivating their participation. Until now, the regulatory framework in this area has been marked by Law 1/2018, of 21 March, on Transparency in Public Activity.

Catalonia

The Government of Catalonia is committed to citizen participation. Its open data strategy has been closely linked to contact with society and the business world, through different actions such as the "Café amb Dades" information sessions.

In the IV Open Government Plan, they committed to creating a virtual meeting place for all the actors working in the field of citizen participation: ParticipaCatalunya.cat, which is already operational. They also plan to build a space for citizen participation to supervise the Generalitat's anti-corruption strategy, as well as to prioritise the opening of public information related to gender inequality, in order to facilitate the monitoring and evaluation of the impact of public policies on equality. For the time being, they are working under the umbrella of their Open Government Plan 2019-2020, which was extended last year.

Extremadura

Within the area of citizen participation and transparency of the Regional Government of Extremadura we find its catalogue of publications, the result of the law 4/2013, of 21 May, on Open Government of Extremadura, which guarantees the right of access to public information. Its strategy also includes the Digital Modernisation Plan 2020-2024 of the Regional Government of Extremadura, which includes, among its priorities, data orientation, promoting its cataloguing and reuse by proactively facilitating its accessibility and usability. Likewise, transparency is one of the ten principles that should guide the performance of the plan and, ultimately, the functioning of the Administration in this scenario of Digital Transformation.

Extremadura's commitments in the IV Open Government Plan are related to the simplification of the right of access to public information and the reduction of response times to the interested party's request, as well as to increasing the level of citizen satisfaction in access to public services, promoting their accessibility and usability through the redesign of processes.

Galicia

In the strategy of the Open Data initiative of Galicia, Abert@s, the importance of internal dissemination stands out, encouraging the participation of all areas in the publication of data, and the promotion of reuse. Its actions are carried out under the umbrella of Law 1/2016, of 18 January, on transparency and good governance.

Galicia's commitments in the IV Open Government Plan are related to improving the Galician government's decision-making, enhancing citizen participation and the automation of administrative procedures, as well as boosting accessibility in the Xunta de Galicia's Transparency and Open Government Portal. They also want to improve the quality of information and promote the publication of content in reusable formats, among others.

Balearic Islands

The regulatory framework for Open Data in the Balearic Islands is Law 4/2011, of 31 March, on good administration and good government in the Balearic Islands, although the agreement that gave rise to its open data portal dates from a month earlier.

The Gobern's commitments on open government have mainly to do with training and regulation. On the one hand, they will carry out training activities aimed at public employees on open government, including open data. On the other hand, they will approve a new Transparency Law and a decree determining the organisation of transparency. The IV Open Government Plan includes more commitments, such as the creation of a platform for citizen participation and the development of an evaluability study to include monitoring indicators in public policies.

La Rioja

The open data portal of La Rioja responds to 2 laws: Law 3/2014, of 11 September, on Transparency and Good Governance of La Rioja and Decree 19/2013, of 31 May, which regulates the reuse of information in the Public Sector of the Autonomous Community of La Rioja.

Those responsible have committed to improving access to information on this portal, as well as on the Transparency Portal and the institutional website. The aim is to integrate, unify, publish, link and exploit the existing information in all of them, in a more efficient way. The development of a new website that is simpler, smarter and more efficient in terms of locating and reusing content will be promoted. Actions will also be developed to improve active publicity and the evaluation of the results of the plans and programmes.

Community of Madrid

The data portal of the Community of Madrid was launched in 2019, the same year as its Law 10/2019, of 10 April, on Transparency and Participation of the Community of Madrid. Since then, its portal has continued to grow, incorporating new datasets and sections aimed at reusers.

In the IV Open Government Plan, the Regional Government of Madrid highlights the importance of communication. It is committed to providing citizens with information in a simple, clear and effective way, so that they can interact more easily with the administration. As a background, they have already worked on a Clear Communication Guide that they want to extend to the field of transparency and citizen information.

Region of Murcia

The CARM has had an open data portal since 2014 and an open data strategy since 2016, which sets as one of its objectives the generation of value through the use of open data. The Regional Administration has included this policy in its Transparency and Open Government Portal, with the aim of aligning both strategies.

The commitments made by the CARM in the IV Open Government Plan are more closely linked to its Public Governance Strategy. Among the measures to be promoted is the creation of a framework for Institutional Integrity, including codes of conduct and training, dissemination and promotion actions, among others, as well as a Register of Interest Groups. Child and youth participation in the design of public policies will also be promoted through workshops.

Navarre

The open data portal of Navarre responds to the Foral Law 5/2018, of 17 May, on Transparency, Access to Public Information and Good Governance.  Work is currently being carried out on the integration of geographical data, which can be found in the Spatial Data Infrastructure of Navarre, and on the integration of a greater number of local entities.

Navarre wants to promote the use of open data on its portal, and therefore undertakes to publish datasets that are of greater interest for the reuse of public sector information and to improve the design and content of the Open Data space. It will incorporate data generated by (NA)SAT and will collaborate with the infomediary sector to identify data of greater interest. Among its objectives is also the federation of Open Data Navarra with broader open data catalogues, such as datos.gob.es.

Valencian Community

The opening and reuse of data is one of the strategic lines included in the Generalitat Valenciana's Biennial Transparency Plan. Although its open data portal dates back to 2016, a new version was launched in 2020, with a change of conception: they have gone from a data repository to a space open to the community of reusers.

In the coming months, Valencia will develop and implement an open data strategy in Valencian public administrations so that the data generated are open and reusable by default. The aim is to promote reuse, accountability and data-driven decision-making, among others. The Generalitat is also promoting instruments for better data management, such as the Artificial Intelligence Strategy for the Valencian Region, and is committed to a collaborative budgeting project, as well as to institutionalising public ethics.

Basque Country

The Open Data Euskadi portal was a pioneer in our country, dating back to 2009. The promotion of open data and the encouragement of its reuse is the responsibility of the Directorate for Citizen Services and Digital Services, as stated in its structural decree. Some of its latest projects are the new Euskalmet website, created with open data, the creation of various open data APIs (traffic, cultural events, etc.) and its Open Data Competitions.

Its commitment is to work together with the main Basque administrations to identify sets of data demanded by the group of reusers in the Basque Country and by citizens, and to standardise and link this data, developing inter-institutional visualisations and services. All of this is accompanied by a participation and communication plan in terms of social auditing, as set out in its Action Plan for Open Government in the Basque Country 2021-2024.

Ceuta and Melilla

The autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, although they do not have open portals yet, have also included commitments in the plan. Ceuta is committed to launching a transparency portal and developing regulations in this area, among other issues. Melilla, for its part, has focused on training and will carry out programmes on youth participation in public management.

In short, all the administrations are working to continue promoting access to information, citizen participation and the reuse of public data.

Content prepared by Julián Valero, professor at the University of Murcia and Coordinator of the Research Group "Innovation, Law and Technology" (iDerTec).

Contents and points of view expressed in this publication are the exclusive responsibility of its author.

The event, framed in the International Congress of Transparency, will take place as a crown jewel of the first day of this congress, on September 30, in Le Grand Café Center of Malaga. The event will offer presentations by journalists, technologists, activists and other expert profiles on this subject, networking and beer for free to attendees.

The XVI edition of Databeers Málaga will take place on Monday, September 30, starting at 7.30 pm, at Le Grand Café Centro, in the heart of Malaga. The capacity will allow to accommodate the usual community of Databeers and any citizen interested in the subject, as well as the numerous people registered in the International Transparency Congress to be held in the city between September 30 and October 2.

Hence, on this occasion the talks, brief and informative, revolve around citizen participation, open data and other topics related to transparency and the so-called Open Government in public administrations:

• The first talk will be given by Juan Romero Raposo, co-founder of one of the pioneer citizen groups in promoting these principles in Spain, OpenKratio. Under the title of “Organizational Paradigms for Open Government”, he will explain how companies and other organizations have been reviewing their organization to adapt it to the open culture and technological and social advances, something that does not always happen when we talk about political organizations.

• Next, Victoria Anderica, expert in Transparency, Citizen Participation and Open Government and currently advisor of the Municipal Group Mas Madrid in the City of Madrid, will show the evolution and some of the current challenges of transparency in Spain.
• Then, journalist Iván Gómez, editor of GobiernoTransparente.com, will provide an international vision, on practical cases, of government plans as an accountability tool and active transparency in which open data and visualizations are put into practice.

• Another journalist with extensive experience in open innovation and citizen participation, driving force behind the open government plan of the Basque Country IREKIA, Nagore de los Ríos, will ask whether transparency in administrations today, a decade after having joined these policies after the Obama effect, is in accordance with the new times.

• Next, a vision of social innovation with Matías Nso, director of kuorum.org, who will explain how, according to his words, although "citizen participation allows to design public policies and services better adapted to the needs of each municipality, if we don't use the right tools we can misinterpret the data”.

• The event will close with the presentation, by David Aurusa and Arantza Lozano, of the OpenODS project, developed by two cooperatives, Enreda and Creating Consciousness. It is a comprehensive system that allows, through data, to identify and visualize actions, as well as measure the impact on the achievement of goals and objectives of each organization or institution regarding to the 2030 Agenda.

In addition to the support of the International Transparency Congress, in this edition, Databeers Málaga has ITRS as a sponsor, and collaborators such as photographer Koke Pérez, Diario Sur and Cervezas San Miguel, which, within the framework of its commitment to Malaga economic and social development, supports Databeers Málaga since the beginning of 2018. The place chosen for this, Le Grand Café Centro, is precisely one of the TapStation -spaces with different varieties of draft beer inspired by the style of various cities in the world - that San Miguel has in Malaga.

Registration for the event is, as always, free, but due to the limited capacity it is essential to previously register online.

Databeers Málaga is coordinated and organized by María Sánchez, a Journalism professor and researcher at the University of Malaga and an Innovation technician at the International de Andalucía.

You can learn more about Databeers through this article and the interview we conducted with María Sánchez and Marcelo Soria, organizers of Databeers and Databeers Málaga respectively.

portalestadistico.com integrates and disseminates official statistics from multiple sources for each of the territories that make up Spain. The offer interactive dashboards and visual data analysis tools, thus promoting the reuse of public information and multiplying data possibilities.

In short, they help local administrations to be more efficient and transparent by disseminating open intelligent data related to their territories.

Populate is a studio focused on digital products strategy and production. Populate conceptualizes, designs and builds products and strategies for citizens’ engagement: tools and platforms to help citizens and organizations better understand and interact with their environment. They create their own projects and offer commercial services such as strategy planning, digital design and development.

The commitment to so-called smart cities is currently one of the major commitments to technological innovation in the public sector, especially in the local sphere. This type of initiative aims to address challenges to sustainability in the urban context and, through the advanced use of information and communication technologies, to optimise resources and make public services more efficient.

The report ‘Open Data and Smart Cities: an alternative legal perspective’ that we published on Datos.gob.es approaches the scope and legal analysis of data openness in this type of project. It is particularly important to provide legal security for the investments and efforts being made by both local governments and service providers and, in general, for the involvement of civil society in this field. As analysed in this report, the plurality of actors and services involved determines the diversity of legal standards in a context where information and communication technologies require interoperability.

Structured into five chapters, the report deals with Law as a tool to serve smart cities, the diversity of actors as a subjective element, the plurality of services involved in a technological context as an objective element, and the scope of the regulatory framework applicable to intelligent cities from the perspective of open data. This last section details the regulations on electronic Government, the legal provisions on transparency and access to public sector information, the legal provisions on the re-use of public sector information, and the legislation covering the protection of personal data.

In the fifth and final chapter, which focuses on the prominence of legal means, the report raises the need for paradigm shifts to drive open data in smart city projects. In particular, it advocates the promotion of a management model based on the foundation of Open Government at the municipal government level, using its legal powers and means. It also proposes a series of prerequisites required to allow the opening of data in smart cities in order to facilitate the re-use of the data generated.

In conclusion, the report ‘Open Data and Smart Cities: an alternative legal perspective’ refers to the need to be aware of the fragmentation of the existing regulatory framework and the challenge for local governments when making reasonable modifications to their own regulations and supporting effective leadership in order to offer value-added services based on their re-use according to the principles of open data.

The attached Report can be downloaded in PDF, Word, and ODT format.

In reference to the Open Government Data Working Group of the World Bank, could you explain how the entity contributes to the opening and re-use of public information?

The World Bank has been providing technical assistance, capacity building and funding for developing countries’ Open Data programs since 2012. Its activities can be summarized under four domains: (a) tools, (b) technical assistance, (c) capacity building and (d) networks and inter-institutional collaboration.

On tools for open data, the Bank publishes and continually updates an Open Data Toolkit Open Data Toolkit that provide a set of curated resources for initiating or deepening an open data program. The tools include basic explanation of what is open data; advice on open data licensing and technology options, training opportunities, research, examples of apps and other uses of open data by sector and many other similar tools. Some of these tools have been developed by the World Bank, but the large majority have been developed by other institutions.

On technical assistance and funding, most developed countries are already harvesting the economic and social benefits that Open Government Data brings about, thus, one of the objectives of the World Bank is to take that knowledge and similar Open Data programs to developing countries. Currently, the World Bank has around 26 Open Data-related lending projects at different completion stages that are being, totally or partially financed, by one of the two lending windows of the World Bank: IBRD or IDA. Some of these projects also have a significant trust fund component.

“One of the objectives of the World Bank is to take that knowledge and similar Open Data programs to developing countries.”

The Bank has primarily focused on two approaches for capacity development on use and engagement with open data.  The first approach has been to collaborate with civic hacker communities around opened data, through an array of generally low-cost hackathons (including on ‘hackable’ questions in key development areas, such as domestic violence, water quality and access, and sanitation).  The second approach is more time and resource-intensive – it focuses on short term ‘open data bootcamps’ or long-term ‘deep dive’ open data training and efforts to institutionalize a ‘culture’ of open data among government and non-government groups.  This approach prioritizes the strengthening of sustainable, endemic (self-reinforcing) capacity and use of open data up and down value chains without subsequent external support.  Additional examples include efforts to integrate teaching curricula on open data into university environments and to integrate open data into private sector business models.

The World Bank has been a main sponsor of the last 3 International Open Data Conferences (Washington 2012, Ottawa 2015 and Madrid 16) and has committed to sponsor the next one (Argentina 2018). The Bank is a funder and founding member of the Open Data for Development (OD4D) program, along with the Canadian Government, the International Development Research Center and DFID. Both directly and through OD4D the Bank also sponsors regional conferences, such as ConDatos (official conference) and AbreLatam (unconference) in Latin America, Africa Open Data conferences and similar ones in other regions that host developing countries. Lastly, the Bank is also a member, but not always a leader, of other global groups that work on Open Data for Development, such as the Open Data Working Group of the OGP, the Open Contracting Data Partnership, the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, The Open Data Charter and others.

Among the functions of the working group, what would you highlight and what are their lines of action? In what projects is the group currently immersed?

One of the most important tools in the Toolkit is the Open Data Readiness Assessment (ODRA), a quick diagnostic and action plan builder, tailored to each country’s legislation, institutions and demand/supply of data. The ODRA includes analysis and recommendations in 8 areas: leadership, policy/legal framework, institutions & capacities, data supply, data demand, civic engagement and capability, funding, and national IT infrastructure. ODRA assessments and the resulting reports are joint products of a small Government team and a Bank team. The methodology can be applied at the national, sub-national, city or agency level. Sectoral adaptations of the methodology have been done for energy and transport. The next section has more information on the countries where ODRAs have been done.

As explained above, there are currently 26 active projects financed by a combination of Bank’s own budget, trust funds, IBRD or IDA, or a combination of these. Since 2012 we have supported around 45 open data initiatives in developing countries.

When IBRD or IDA projects count with full government support, ODRA implementation and other related Open Data initiatives can be deepened and expanded, since IDA/IBRD projects assign larger amounts and take several years of implementation. Also, once the Open Data initiative or ODRA implementation is concluded, there is a great possibility to use Open Data applications to shed light on some individual sectors of the economy that need more technical support or financial assistance from IBRD or IDA.

 “Since 2012 we have supported around 45 open data initiatives in developing countries.”

 How do you think that opening up public information and citizen participation in government processes can boost development in emerging economies? Could you illustrate this with some real cases?

When data are made widely available and easy to use, the benefits can be significant. Broadly speaking, the benefits of Open Data include:

• Transparency. Open Data supports public oversight of governments and helps reduce corruption by enabling greater transparency. For instance, Open Data makes it easier to monitor government activities, such as tracking public budget expenditures and impacts. It also encourages greater citizen participation in government affairs and supports democratic societies by providing information about voting procedures, locations and ballot issues.
• Public Service Improvement. Open Data gives citizens the raw materials they need to engage their governments and contribute to the improvement of public services. For instance, citizens can use Open Data to contribute to public planning, or provide feedback to government ministries on service quality.
• Innovation and Economic Value. Public data, and their re-use, are key resources for social innovation and economic growth. Open Data provides new opportunities for governments to collaborate with citizens and evaluate public services by giving citizens access to data about those services. Businesses and entrepreneurs are using Open Data to better understand potential markets and build new data-driven products.
• Efficiency. Open Data makes it easier and less costly for government ministries to discover and access their own data or data from other ministries, which reduces acquisition costs, redundancy and overhead. Open Data can also empower citizens with the ability to alert governments to gaps in public datasets and to provide more accurate information.

Several concrete examples of the use of Open Data in specific countries and sectors can be found here.

It will take time to fully understand the complexity and broad potential of Open Data, as the benefits of Open Data impact on broader populations and additional useful options are continuously discovered.

The World Bank has its own open data portal. You could mention some outstanding project - visualization, service, app ... - that has reused the information of the platform and that has had a positive social impact in its environment.

The World Bank provides several tools to enable use of its own data. These include the Bank’s Open Data website and Databank, which allow users to search, visualize and download development data quickly and easily. The Bank also provides data via application programming interfaces (APIs), which has enabled the development of many third-party apps and greatly expanded the ways in which Bank data can be put to use.

Here are some examples:

• Google incorporates development data from the World Bank into its search engine. Searches for common, country-level development indicators such as GDP of Ethiopia typically produce a visualization of relevant data, sourced from the World Bank’s open data API.
• StatPlanet allows users to select and visualize over 3,000 development indicators for nearly every dimension of economic, social and human development. StatPlanet was the winner of the World Bank’s Apps for Development competition, and its technology has been incorporated into the Bank’s EdStats education data portal.
• Save the Rain is an app that uses World Bank open data to estimate the agricultural impacts of small-scale water conservation on a local scale. Save the Rain was one of the finalists in the World Bank’s Apps for Climate competition.
• WB Panorama is another Apps for Climate finalist that uses World Bank open data to show the impact of climate change on crop yields and local living conditions.

In addition, open data best practices enable other governments and organizations to redistribute World Bank data with virtually no transaction costs. For example, when Edo State, Nigeria launched its open data portal in 2014, it copied open data for that region from the World Bank as a way to augment its own data offerings. Open data allowed Edo State to provide its citizens with a broader set of useful data in a single repository than would have been possible otherwise.

Following your participation in the last edition of the International Open Data Conference held in Madrid. How would you rate the current state of the open data sector on a global scale? What immediate needs do you detect and what do you consider to be the next steps necessary to move forward in openness?

While open data is showing signs of increasing maturity in developed countries and some developing countries, the state of progress is heterogeneous and its impact is hard to measure.  Why is open data succeeding in some contexts and failing to achieve traction in others? Open data is more useful and actionable when it is a strategic element of a larger development initiative and not pushed forward as a standalone issue. There is evidence that open data is progressing where it is aligned with other important agendas such as the climate change or national development plans, as well as with regional and sector-specific discussions, for example standards and best practices in contracting, statistics, transport, open cities’ data and more.  There is also noticeable interest in business models for open data. The future of open data is largely linked to the extent to which the agendas and activities of the organizations and individuals within the open data community align around concrete, shared priorities. 

Realizing the potential of open data for decision-making requires making open data and its applications work for everyone, creating tools for a broad audience and identifying data to be opened based on larger efforts to improve the lives of all people, including the poor, the marginalized, and the chronically underserved.

“The future of open data is largely linked to the extent to which the agendas and activities of the organizations and individuals within the open data community align around concrete, shared priorities.”

In contrast to previous years, the Madrid Conference showed that National Statistical Offices (‘NSOs’) are emerging as a potentially important stakeholder group. This is a qualitative leap for open data in developing countries, where NSOs are often the primary (if not the only) source of high-quality, official data.

Advocates for grassroots open data initiatives in many developing countries need financial, material, and human support. The international community is increasingly interested in data for development. However, it is unclear whether open data has the same level of priority in their agenda. Also, models for implementation that work in the developed world may need to be reconsidered, and merged with other approaches that recognize different circumstances in developing countries.  With this in mind, the business case for open data still needs to be showcased wherever possible (e.g. public services’ efficiencies resulting from open data, contributions to economic growth, job creation, etc.)

Another challenge in developing country contexts is the availability of quality data, on a predictable and frequent schedule and with enough metadata to make it useful for reuse. Use of common taxonomies is essential to extract maximum value from data already opened, and I think we are just starting on this.