Open Data Open House: Re-visiting the LATAM and Europe/Africa Sessions
The Open Data Charter celebrated #OpenDataDay2023 and hosted an open space to discuss what’s new and what’s possible with open data across the world
By Mercedes de los Santos, Project Manager; Renato Berrino, Research Manager; Natalia Carfi, Executive Director at Open Data Charter and edited by Cat Cortes, Communications Lead.
Open Data Day 2023
Open Data Day happened differently this year. We at the Open Data Charter decided to open up a virtual space and celebrate Open Data Day with sessions that covered all regions and time zones: from Latin America to Europe and Africa, then Asia and Oceania and finally, North America. We opened this space so that colleagues from the international open data community can share honestly about the progress, challenges and lessons in the past years. We called this series Open Data Open House to re-emphasize the openness needed in what we do, and that any person, organization and/or government can count on the 6 principles that make up the international Open Data Charter to promote transparency and publish data with a purpose.
Open Data Open House Latin America
The first space we opened was for the region where we were born, in Latin America. The session invited governments, organizations, academia and activists working to open quality data, with impact and for the improvement of public policies. Our speakers included: Eduardo Borregon from Datasketch; Patricio Lloret from the Government of Ecuador and Margarita Yepez from the CSO Datalat. They discussed the initiatives they are carrying out, in their own sector.
We started by focusing on the need to democratize the access to data and create bridges between data and citizens. We know that collecting data and analyzing them leads us to make good decisions, but does this happen in practice?
Eduardo Borregon from Datasketch presented “Data Management System”, a program that aims to help close the gap between data and the capacity of public agents and citizens to process it. The program improves data accessibility through a single repository where key datasets that need to be investigated can be deposited. At the same time, it has easy-to-use analysis tools that enable cross-referencing and interoperability of this information and, finally, generate visualization. Finally, he concluded that we must improve the role of data in society, we must take data out of the computer so that citizens can appropriate it through communication and storytelling, which is, in the end, what will generate change.
When we think about the main actor in the creation or consumptionof public data, we think of governments. Patricio Lloret, Undersecretary of Open Government of Ecuador shared with about the country’s latest advances in their open data agenda. Among them, he mentioned the incorporation of three commitments in the last Open Government Partnership action plan (OGP): the collaborative development of the open data policy, the redesign and update of the open data portal and the open information platform for public procurement. In addition, since the implementation of the Open Up Guide for Anti-corruption, Ecuador has increased not only the number of datasets published, but also the number of institutions that have joined this process of openness. It went from 31 to 95 institutions and from 107 to 869 datasets.
Finally, participants included as a relevant topic within the open data agenda the development of regulations that will serve as a basis for improving data governance over time. Daniela García, Director of Open Data in Argentina, announced that the Open Data Infrastructure Policy in Argentina has been launched with the aim, above all, of building a participatory data governance process and thus outlining the set of priority data for the country and under international standards such as Global Data Barometer, Open Contracting, Open Data Charter, among others.
You can find the session video here: Open Data Open House: LATAM Session
Open Data Open House — Europe and África
For the second Open Data Open House session, we move to another time zone to learn more about the initiatives and projects that were being developed in Europe and Africa. It was our first virtual meeting held for the region, and the panel of diverse speakers was formed both from the responses and project applications that were made to the survey we circulated in the Implementation Working Group and through conversations with our adopters and sponsors in the region.
In this meeting we had a diverse group of speakers: two of them from Africa, and two from Europe. Those who shared their projects and knowledge were: Poncelet Ileleji, from Jokkolabs Banju; Karl Donert, from EUROGEO; Roberto Magro Pedroviejo from the Open Data Group of the Network of Local Entities for Participation and Transparency of FEMP (Federation of Spanish Municipalities); and Charlie Martial NGOUNOU from Afroleadership.
Our first speaker, Poncelet Ileleji, is part of Jokkolabs Banju, Jokkolabs is an independent non-profit organization that serves as an open innovation ecosystem and virtual cluster for social transformation. He introduced us to “Taproot Earth Project on Salt Water Intrusion”, about research and mapping exercise in five regions of The Gambia to complement the work on climate data in agriculture to support and highlight the efforts and work currently underway to mitigate the impacts of climate change as it particularly affects women in agriculture, specifically in rice production. We learned the various lessons they came up with, and the recommendations they were able to issue.
Karl Donert, EUROGEO’s president (the European Association of Geographers) presented open data projects for education, integrating technologies and data for learning and teaching and increasing notions and democratic involvement in curricula. Among the projects mentioned was “Teaching the Future’’ which makes use of open data on climate in order to provide teachers with tools to educate their students about climate change.
Thirdly, we listened to Roberto Magro Pedroviejo from the Open Data Group of the Network of Local Entities for Participation and Transparency of FEMP (Federation of Spanish Municipalities). It was very interesting to learn about the work of an articulated network of local governments generating resources, materials and training to promote openness at the subnational level. Roberto shared guides for city councils and other public administrations that collaborate in the definition of the open data strategy (for example, the 2019 Guide with 40 datasets to be published by local governments, or the Guide to data visualization). Finally, he shared with us some of the projects coming up in 2023: a proposal for 80 datasets to be published by local entities, and a proposal for a Model Ordinance on Data Governance for local governments.
Finally, Charlie Martial NGOUNOU of Afroleadership gave us an overview of their initiatives in Africa and how his organization has initiated many partnerships to advance open data conversations and implementation in the region, again focusing on the importance of collaborative approaches to this agenda. The organization’s mission is to empower citizens, so that they can assert their rights and achieve informed political participation. New technologies and data play a fundamental role in achieving this goal.
At the end of the session, there was time for reflection, and we focused on lessons and challenges from the different initiatives that were presented. Some lessons learned were:
- The regulatory frameworks in some regions are deficient or very fragmented; we need to work on strengthening or creating them;
- There is a need to generate instances of awareness and training on data issues; it is very important that governments get involved and understand that the use of open data is key to address development issues in specific areas (agriculture, education, etc.);
- Promoting collaboration and networking is key to push the agenda; it is necessary to have clear data governance strategies in order to transform administrations in the current digital context and in the changes to come.
These sessions confirmed the need for continued communication, collaboration and discussion in all areas of open data. We hope to hold another edition of this series soon, but in the meantime, all sessions are available on our Youtube channel.
If you would like to join our monthly Implementation Working Group meetings, please write to info@opendatacharter.org.
