Expand open data portal and promote access (AL0068)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address? Transparency and public accountability are mutually reinforcing principles of good governance and often also underpin public trust in government and consequently civic and public engagement and participation. As such addressing and improving the level of transparency across public institutions is particularly important. According to the “Trust in Governance 2019” opinion poll of 2500 randomly selected Albanians, while a majority of the Albanian population is aware of the right to information law, most Albanian’s surveyed did not perceive central and local institutions to be transparent. Addressing this perception will require increased coordination, engagement and commitment from public institutions to operate with greater transparency and facilitate citizen access to government information and data. Open data strengthens the governance of and trust in the public institutions, reinforces governments’ obligation to respect the rule of law, and provides a transparent and accountable foundation to improve decision-making and enhance the provision of public services.

What is the commitment? An open data portals is a web-based interface that enables anyone to access, use and redistribute the data uploaded to it. Open data portals publish data that has the technical and legal characteristics that allow citizens, businesses, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, researchers and journalists to access datasets and metadata records of data sets, primarily in the form of numerical data, to use freely. Albania’s Open Data Portal currently provides open data from several sectors – for example: health, treasury, customs, education, business – this commitment will improve scale up the volume and quality of open data available on the Government’s open data portal. A number of public bodies are actively engaged with the initiative but more engagement is required to bring other public bodies on board to make their data available as open data. Greater promotion of the portal amongst potential users is also required. This commitment will make available new data from additional public institutions, as well as develop strategies to improve citizens understanding of the use and application of the Open Data Portal and increase accessibility to citizens. Objective: Commitments |Digital Governance: Accessibility in Public Services| Commitment 4 This commitment aims to improve access to information and strengthen transparency by expanding the amount of available data on the Government’s open data portal through increasing engagement and participation from public institutions towards making their data available as open data. The commitment aims to promote the use of open data to citizens and across the public administration to improve the flow of information across citizens and institutions to increase informed decision making and public accountability. Expected results: • Expanded number of datasets accessible through the open data portal; • Promotion of new innovative ideas, services and products; • Increased awareness and usage of the open data by citizens and institutions; • Increased engagement of citizens and accountability to public institutions.

How will the commitment contribute to solving the public problem? Increasing number of data sets accessible through open data portal strengthens the governance of and trust in the public institutions, reinforces governments’ obligation to respect the rule of law, and provides a transparent and accountable foundation to improve decision-making and enhance the provision of public services. Ensuring that the data on the Open Data Portal meets the globally agreed norms for publishing open data - i) open by default; ii) timely and comprehensive; iii) accessible and usable; iv) comparable and interoperable; v) facilitates citizen engagement – will help build a culture of openness within the public administration, reinforce government’s respect for the rule of law and consequently help build citizen trust in public institutions. This commitment will make available data and develop new ways of sharing government data (milestone 1) that had not been previously available to the public, thus increasing public institutions accountability to citizens. This increased transparency of government decisions and processes can help to promote accountability and enhance public debate. As Open Data Portals helps to improve the flow of information within and across public institutions the expansion of open data can also facilitate improve coordination and decision making within and across public institutions that will further promote public accountability and trust. To ensure the portal’s expansion meets the objectives of the commitment an accessibility strategy and awareness campaign (milestone 2) will be designed and implemented so as to familiarize and educate citizens on the full range of applications of open data and explain how the portal can be used by citizens for these various applications. OGP challenge affected by this measures Improve public services Increase efficient management of public resources Increase public integrity Increase corporat e accountability Create a safer community for citizens & civil society ☒ ☒ ☒ ☐ ☒

Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values? Transparency & Access to Information • Does the ide a disclose more information to the public? • Does the ide a improve the quality of information disclosed to the public? • Does the ide a improve accessibility of information to the public? • Does the ide a e nable the right to information? ☒Y es ☐N o As the Open Data Portal centralizes publically av ailable data in one place it increa ses the ease and simplicity for those wanting to access data and ensures accessibility of information to the public. Scaling up the v olume of open data available on the g ov ernment’s Open Data Portal will greatly increa se the public’s access to more information and data sets. As data on the Open Data Portal is published in a format that is ea sily searchable and can be downloaded to v arious formats it can be ea sily and effectiv ely accessed by the widest range of u sers. Open data helps impr ov e the flow of information within and among gov ernments, and make g ov ernment decision s and pr ocesses more transparent. Because open data allows users to compare and combine the connection s among different datasets, tracing data acr oss a number of pr ograms and sector s u ser s can identify if are any gaps or misleading in formation and pr ov ide subsequ ent feedback to the respon sible in stitution therein promoting a sy stem of accountability towards relev ant and reliably accurate information. As the portal prioritizes transparency and open data, the Open Data Portal enables Albanians’ legal right to information and through this transparency and improv ed in formation access will help increa se trust in the g ov ernment. Public Accountability • Does the ide a cre ate or improve rules, regulations, and mechanisms to publicly hold government officials answerable to the ir actions? • Does the ide a make the government accountable to the public and not solely to inte rnal syste ms? ☒Y es ☐N o Open data, if timely , comprehensiv e, accessible, comparable and inter operable, ha s the capacity to pr ov ide citizens with the opportunity to better under stand what officials and polit icians are doing and what gov ernment actions and processes are taking place that as a result incentiv izes public in stitutions to operate in an ethical and efficient manner. En suring that the data uploa ded to the Open Data portal is done so in an inter operable, follows agreed upon standards, and is comparable allows u ser s to compare and combine different datasets. Increa sing number of data sets accessible through open data portal ha s a multiplier effect whereby because open data allows u ser s to compare and combine the connect ions among different datasets, tracing data across a number of pr ograms and sector s users can identify if are any gaps or misleading information and pr ov ide subsequent feedback to the r espon sible in stitution therein pr omoting a sy stem of accountability towards r elevant and reliably accurate in formation and respon sible decision making. Open data reinforces g ov ernments’ obligation to respect the rule of law, and pr ov ides a transparent and accountable foundation to improv e decision -making and enhance the prov ision of public serv ices. Open data can help impr ov e the flow of in formation within and among g ov ernments, and make g ov ernment decisions and pr ocesses m ore transparent. Increa sed transparency promotes accountability and g ood g ov ernance, enhances public debate, and helps combat corruption. Public & Civic Participation • Does the ide a cre ate or improve opportunities, or capabilities for the public to inform or influe nce de cisions? • Does the ide a cre ate or improve the e nabling e nvironme nt for civil socie ty? ☒Y es ☐N o Open data strengthens the g ov ernance of and trust in the public institutions, r einforces g ov ernments’ obligation to respect the rule of law, and pr ov ides a transparent and accountable foundation to improv e decision-making and enhance the pr ov ision of public serv ices. Open data encourages better dev elopment, implementation, and a ssessment of programs and policies to meet the needs of cit izens, and enables civ ic participation and better informed engagement between g ov ernments and cit izen s. Technology & Innovation • Will te chnological innovation be used in with one of the other three OGP values to advance participation, transpare ncy or accountability? ☒Y es ☐N o This commitment makes use of open data technologies and online capacities a s the fundamental mechanisms to achiev e all of its objectiv es. Open data pr ov ides the opportunity for information sharing and accountability in real time and enables a participatory appr oach to kn owledg e building and sharing. Open data presents opportunities to prov ide innov ativ e, ev idence-based policy solutions and support econ omic benefits and social dev elopment for all member s of society .

Milestone Activities Milestones Indicators Responsible Institution / s New or Continued Idea Timeframe Measurable & verifiable achievements to accomplish the objective Result Indicators Output Indicators Lead Responsible Institution Supporting / Coordinating Agencies / Institutions New or continued from 2018- 2020 OGP AP Start Date End Dat e Priority Measure 1: Expanding the context and accessibility of the Open Data Portal Milestone 1: Increa sing the number of datasets accessible through the open data portal. Datasets on portal from all pu blic institutions National A gency for Information Society (NA IS) Line Ministries; Su bordinate institutions and their dependent institutions; local government, independent institutions ☒N o ☐Y es Jan. 2020 Dec. 2022 Milestone 2: Raising awareness and pr omoting u sage through multiple communication channels. Communication strategy designed to explain use of portal and increase accessibility to ci tizens. Awareness campaigns conducted. National A gency for Information Society (NA IS) Line Ministries and their dependent institutions, local government, independent institutions ☒N o ☐Y es Jan. 2020 Dec. 2022

Action Plan Review

Commitment #4: Expansion and increased accessibility of the Open Data Portal

●      Verifiable: Yes

●      Does it have an open government lens? Yes

●      Potential for results: Unclear

Results Report

Commitment 4. Expansion and increased accessibility of the Open Data Portal

• Verifiable: Yes

• Does it have an open government lens? Yes

• Potential for results: Unclear

• Completion: Limited

• Did it open government? No early results to report yet

Continuing efforts from the previous action plan, this commitment was aimed at increasing the number of datasets available on the open data portal and promote its use.

The government self-assessment report states 101 datasets were added to the portal by the first half of 2021 and 53 more were added by September 2022. [59] Upon verifying this claim, the IRM found the portal only had 85 datasets overall in March 2023. [60] Not all public institutions publish data on the portal even though this was an indicator in the commitment. [61] The IRM researcher was unable to contact relevant non-government stakeholders for input regarding the utility of these datasets.

The government self-assessment report states that 81.9% of respondents expressed satisfaction in the 2021 online survey. [62] However, this was not in itself an awareness raising activity as expected under milestone 2. The report further states that promotional activities were introduced in 2022 with academia, researchers, and businesses, and that trainings were offered for public administration. [63] However, no evidence was available to verify this information. Therefore, the IRM cannot determine that there have been early results from the publication of datasets or the awareness raising. In their assessment, the EC emphasizes the need of promoting better links between academia, industry, and government stakeholders in the fields of open data and access [64].