First assessment of the progress and problems of the OGAP implementation in Moldova for the year 2012
Joining the OGP in April 2012, Moldova developed its first Open Government Action PlanAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... (OGAP) for 2012 – 2013. The implementation of this action plan was made the responsibility of the central government, including the State Chancellery and the e-Government Center. The control of the Open Government Action Plan implementation was put in charge of the State Chancellery as well the central administration, with the support of e-Transformation coordinators or designated civil servants responsible for open government data.
After a year of the OGAP implementation, the Association for Participatory Democracy ADEPT and Independent Journalism Centre, on the initiative and with the financial support of the Soros Foundation-Moldova, developed two comprehensive reports evaluating the OGAP implementation and the Public Data opening in 2012, within the project “Open Government for an Informed and Active Society”. These reports represent a first attempt to conduct an independent, comprehensive and systematic assessment of the OGAP implementation and show the current situation, trend and progress in the implementation of the Open Governance in Moldova.
The main conclusion of the evaluation is that the implementation of open government follows a positive trend but at a slow pace. By the time of conducting the evaluation (June 2013), the implementation level of the Action Plan was average, of about 55.05%. The results obtained by Moldova in OGAP implementation shows a greater success in complying with the commitments regarding the efficient and transparent management of public resources under the second OGAP objective (fulfilled to an extent of around 73%). The fulfillment of the first objective, on “strengthening public integrity by ensuring a participative decision-making process, citizen participationAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, citizen participation occurs when “governments seek to mobilize citizens to engage in public debate, provide input, and make contributions that lead to m... More and increasing transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More in governance”, is average (53.86%); and the fulfillment of the third commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... related to improving the quality of public service deliveryTo ensure that citizens of all groups are better supported by the government, OGP participating governments are working to improve the quality of and access to public services. Commitments in this are... More, is quite poor (12.5%).
As regards the process of data sets opening, the reports conclude that only 13 out of the 41 ministries and central public authorities present at least ten datasets on the single access open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... portal date.gov.md, after more than two years of the launch of the portal. The OGAP provided for opening 29 new data sets in 2012, listed in an Annex to the Action Plan. Ministries failed to open 31% of the sets of data, while 21% are partly open. 45% of the data opened or partly opened by ministries are incomplete. In most cases, data are not updated and detailed, with ministries only publishing general statistics. According to a questionnaire, 50% of the opened sets of data are relevant and useful for mass media and civil society in covering issues of public interest.
The implementation of an open government is difficult, among the main causes being insufficient mechanisms for the monitoring and control of the implementation process, insufficient human resources, and reduced visibility of open government initiatives, public authorities and societal inertia. In spite of some achievements in the field of ensuring transparency of the public authorities in their decision making and their activities, there still is an insufficient commitment from their side to ensure greater transparency in their work. Furthermore, the civic engagement is reduced, fact also mentioned repeatedly by interviewed public servants. This is not a problem exclusive to the open governance field, being rather a systemic issue of the Moldovan democracy.
Moldova OGAP Implementation Report 2012