Next Open Data frontier: Low and Middle income countries
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This document proposes developing an Open Government Data (OGD) program framework to assess readiness for OGD initiatives in low and middle-income countries. It discusses establishing a set of economic, social, institutional, technological, and openness indicators to evaluate countries. The framework would provide objective data and input from government officials, organizations, businesses, universities, the press, and citizens to determine a country's political willingness, infrastructure, and capacity for OGD. The goal is to help identify needs and tailor existing OGD models to better launch new programs in developing nations.
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Next Open Data frontier: Low and Middle income countries
- 1. Next Frontier Low and Middle Income Countries A proposal from the Transparency and Accountability Initiative Funded by:
- 2. OGD over the world Time to consider OGD programs all over the world, particularly low and middle-income countries source: http://datos.fundacionctic.org/sandbox/catalog/faceted/
- 3. How all this began? Most of the things were already in place i.e. political willingness, IT infrastructure, capacity etc.
- 4. Need to go one step back How to know if a given country is ready to engage and maintain an OGD programme? • What is needed? • How much of what we know from existing initiatives is applicable? • What are the indicators that will enable the definition of OGD readiness in a given country?
- 5. Several topics to cover Analysis of a complex set of indicators • Economical and business enviroment • Social enviroment • Institutional and political environment • Scientific-Technological Framework • Openess
- 6. “Corruption is everywhere, from the airport to the officers” “Education Ministry website is down since last 5 months”
- 7. Lots of questions • Is democracy well founded in the country? • Is the political top-level layer ready to facilitate an OGD initiative? • What level of data collection does the government currently undertake? • What is the Internet connectivity level? • What is the education and literacy level in the country? …
- 8. We need the answers • Objective statistical information • Desk research • Literature review • Questionnaires • In-country visits • In-person or phone interviews
- 9. • Top level Government. • Middle layers. • International Institutions. • Civil hackers and Activists. • Private Business. • Press and Media. • University. • NGOs and non-profit. “It has to start at the top, it has to start in the middle and it has to start at the bottom.” – Tim Berners-Lee
- 11. People don’t like to be tagged without permission
- 12. Open issues • Still a work in progress • Iterative process • Would like to start discussion • Currently around 70 indicators • Just 4 use cases so far • Need more use cases • Statistical refinement e.g. correlation analysis
- 13. Some references OGD @ Web Foundation http://www.webfoundation.org/projects/ogd/ OGD @ CTIC CT http://datos.fundacionctic.org/ Contact: Aman Grewal aman@webfoundation.org Carlos Iglesias carlos.iglesias@fundacionctic.org
Editor's Notes
- If you look at the map carefully you will see that it is not really all over the world Spots on the map are concentrated in well defined areas (USA, Canada and western Europe) A big gap with respect to low and middle income countries
- Two key figures and almost nothing else Local champions Several other countries came later In such initiatives most of the things were in place i.e. political willingness, IT infrastructure, capacity etc. The rest of ingredients for the recipe were already there, we even did not think about them before It is something we assume was already there in the project we did so far
- Are low and middle income countries ready for an OGD initiative? Even how much we know from existing initiatives?
- What are ingrendients for this magical OGD recipe. What are the things we need to analyse? There are several prerequisits we need to fullfil before starting an OGD programme. We need to analyse a series of complex variables with regards to different topics that include… All of this might sound quite strange for you. Probably you haven ’ t seen this kind of analysis before in any other OGD related project This is because, as Aman said, all these things were already in place in the previous experiences. When defining an OGD strategy, firms are an important stakeholder to consider as they are one of the main producers of services for citizens. It is essential to know the quantity and quality of human resources in the country, both as potential data consumers and as a possible labor force involved in OGD projects. The quality of the country's institutions has a strong influence on the control of corruption, as well as the existence of control mechanisms for the respect of civil rights and intellectual property. OGD projects have an important technological component, and therefore will require a suitable environment in terms of availability and use of ICT to serve as a basis for project development. Moreover, being a project related to an emerging area, the existence of an environment with some innovative nature is helpful for its development. Indicators developed in this section are based on experience in previous OGD research and ongoing projects, and are based on extensive literature review and desk research.
- Some in-country insights (excerpts from some interviews we conducted in different countries) Probably you didn ’ t think about corruption here in the UK before the start of the OGD programme. It was assumed that there was not such a problem here, but this may be not the case in other places. Could I start an OGD programme with such a level of corruption? Probably yes! No single indicator is so critical for itself to stop the hole process, but definitively, this one is not going to help either. What it is really important is the sum of all of them.
- Questionnaire 25 High level questions 150+ more detailed sub-questions for guidance And what if the literacy rate is really low? There are studies about the relationship between ICT usage and literacy levels If people are not ready to take advantage of the exposed information, does it make sense to go on with the OGD programme? To expose data is not so useful if nobody is looking at it
- Gathered from different sources Fortunatly we have various hight quality studies, publications and databases issued by international organizations with a big credibility and reputation, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Found (IMF), the World Bank or the United Nations
- We can ’ t start a long term OGD programme if we don ’ t count on all the three layers Of course, always that you need answers you also need to talk to people. Really different people involved (profiles) Not all questions can be answered by everybody Probably no one question can be answered just by a single person Top-level and medium-layer public administration representatives, and representatives from business or civil society organizations.
- DON ’ T PANIC. Yes I said index, the i-word, but it is an independent tool. We can decide if we want to use it or not. You can create the index with some of the answers, but you don ’ t need to. All the answers will be part of the final report anyway. The index provides an initial tool to evaluate and rank countries based on their OGD readiness. This index, like many others, should be used as a simple means to evaluate and summarize OGD readiness, in order to facilitate communication with the general public. It should not be considered as the only tool for driving public policy or to trigger the launch of OGD initiatives. The definition of the corresponding strategy can only be the result of the application of the complete assessment methodology. Latin America and the Caribbean, sub saharan africa examples QI? Data must be comparable, available for a wider number of countries, including different regions of the world and developing countries, must be updated regularly…
- Indexes are not so bad always that you follow best practices while developing them. We have serveral examples of useful indexes: e.g. ICT Development Index, Press Freedom Index, Corruption Index… The problem is that we are putting labels (scores) on people (countries) Nobody wants to be the last on the queue It is an initial tool to evaluate and rank countries based on their OGD readiness. It should be used as a simple means to evaluate and summarize OGD readiness, in order to facilitate communication with the general public. It should not be considered as the only tool for driving public policy or to trigger the launch of OGD initiatives. Such decision and the definition of the corresponding strategy can only be the result of the application of the complete assessment methodology.
- Still a work in progress We would like to start discussion about the topic and this is our initial proposal Currently around 70 indicators Just 4 use cases too far, need more use cases to do some statistical work, such as correlation analysis, and reduce the number of indicators