Data openness and reutilisation (BUE0007)

• Open Information is Key in the Fight Against Climate Change (December 1, 2020)

Link with the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 (SDG) SDG 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions

Status quo / Issue to be Addressed In general terms, citizens do not find the functions and activities of the different branches of government easy to understand. This complexity makes difficult the interaction between citizens and the government in terms of citizens’ requests and co-creation as well as the follow-up, monitoring and control of public policies. Below are some different issues identified: • Lack of unified criteria for the publication of public information. Currently, information is dispersed, it is not completely clear and there is a lack of access to data. • Lack of information about data generated by each area and inexistence of a protocol established to ease the exchange of such data. While individual efforts are made by Ministries to exploit the data, there is no unified strategy nor coordination between the areas. There is a need to promote the reuse of open data through the participation of several actors in the processes. • The Executive Branch drives different citizen participation stages: virtual, on-site, at public works, etc. There is a need to systematize the information and its indicators to be able to conduct a follow-up, measure the impact in the public policies in an open manner and see the results of these stages. • There is a lack of systematised information in an open format within the Legislative Branch. Likewise, while the Legislature – and the Constitution of the City- promote diverse citizen participation stages, there is no virtual space that systematises the information generated in the Legislature in an open data format, nor an office that centralises citizens’ claims and suggestions or promotes proximity to citizens. • Deficiency in intra-institutional communication of the Judicial Branch. By innovating and making the processes transparent, we will be able to bring them closer to the citizens who normally do not know in detail how Justice works due to its legal technicalities and the limited openness of information on how justice operates.

General objective Make the functions of the three branches of Government more understandable and bring them closer to the citizens, facilitate the follow-up and participation of neighbours in citizen participation stages. Strengthen data openness and generate innovative mechanisms for accountability through the creation of indexes which allow for the assessment of public policies.

Brief description of the initiative The commitment “Openness and Innovation for an Open Government” has different lines of action aimed at improving institutions and their relationship with citizens. These lines of action are: Access to information and assessment – Generate unified publication standards. Elaborate a diagnosis of relevant information related to civil society demand. Create tools and methodologies to assess the public policies on transparency. Open data and reutilisation - The commitment will seek to enhance the open data policy through 3 stages: one internal stage on redefinition of standards and normalisation of criteria; another one aimed at the promotion of use, reuse and openness on request; and another stage for the increasement of published datasets and its displays. Strengthening and follow-up of citizen participation – we will work towards the openness of information on indicators and data about the citizen participation practices carried out by the Government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. We seek to ease the tracking process to show the public the results of the different processes and practices opened, and promote different participation spaces within the public policies cycle. Open data and participation in the Legislature - Analyse the information generated in the Legislature, systematise it and make it available in a centralised open data platform. Create a centralised office to act as a direct link with citizens, which can serve as a tool to increase transparency and proximity to society. Open Courts - Generate an openness space in the Judicial Branch through an Innovation Laboratory which allows for the co-creation, development and diffusion of open government policies leading to the opening of a new extra- and inter- judicial participation channel.

Describe the way in which this commitment is relevant to strengthen OGP values of transparency, access to information, public accountability, civic participation, and technology and innovation for openness and accountability. The generation of unified standards together with the creation of a diagnosis of relevant information related to civil society demand as well as the creation of assessment tools will strengthen civil society’s capacity to monitor and assess the City’s public policies in terms of transparency. Openness of more data contributes to transparency, access to information and accountability. Furthermore, the promotion of use, the reuse and openness on request promote citizen participation, technology and innovation. The participation initiative will make citizen participation processes more transparent and it will provide feedback since it discloses the results, thus it generates a feedback circle between the government and citizens. The improvement of the access to parliamentary information by facilitating the analysis and electronic access to parliamentary information to all citizens and institutions, will allow for the improvement of performance accountability. In addition to enhancing the civil society’s monitoring capacity, the centralised spaces for access to virtual information and the OAC (Citizen Services Office) will promote the effective participation of citizens in the decision-making processes. The creation of a Judicial Innovation Laboratory will facilitate citizens’ access to legal information, moreover, the establishment of openness practices will contribute to accountability.

Milestones Ongoing or new commitment Start date End date 2. Data openness and reutilisation 2.1 Redefinition and institutionalisation of the strategy for collection, normalisation and openness of data from different areas of government. Generation of a set of guidelines and recommendations. Metrics: number of meetings of the “data roundtable”; agreements on standards; datasets updates and new datasets published. Ongoing July 2018 March 2019 2.2 Implementation of a strategy to promote the use and reuse of data published in the open data portal, with universities, civil society organisations and the private sector as main actors. Likewise, these actors will be incorporated into the design of openness of data plans to promote openness on request. At least three sessions on civic innovation are expected to be conducted with this goal. Metrics: effective conduction of sessions; products created from the reuse of data; datasets published on request. Channels: networks, newsletters, “stories with data.” New April 2019 September 2020 2.3 Make open data available through a programmatic access (API). Increase the number of datasets published in the open data portal by 50% and generate displays to ease its understanding. New October 2018 September 2020

2.  Apertura de datos y reutilización

Objetivo del compromiso

Este compromiso continuó el trabajo realizado por la Ciudad de Buenos Aires en materia de apertura de datos, promoviendo una estrategia institucional de redefinición de estándares con el objeto de ordenar la publicación de datos abiertos de forma transversal a todas las áreas de gobierno. Entre las distintas actividades, proponía la definición de una estrategia institucional de publicación de datos común a todas las áreas de gobierno, la realización de jornadas de innovación cívica con universidades, sector privado y OSC para promover el uso de los datos publicados, el aumento de la publicación de los sets de datos en un 50% así como la realización de visualizaciones que facilitarán la comprensión de los datos [1].

¿Contribuyó a la apertura del Gobierno?

Significativamente

El compromiso contribuyó significativamente a la apertura del Gobierno continuando y profundizando el trabajo realizado en los años anteriores a la implementación del primer plan de acción. Con la publicación de sets de datos, visualizaciones  y realización se varias actividades de formación e impulso a la innovación (que se detallan más adelante) se fortaleció la participación ciudadana y se profundizó en un mayor acceso a la información. La investigadora del IRM pudo constatar la amplia participación en los talleres por parte de organizaciones de la sociedad civil, instituciones académicas y sector privado. Asimismo, las nuevas bases de datos incluyeron la apertura de datos en áreas que no habían sido trabajadas hasta la fecha, incluyendo algunas vinculadas a la gestión de compras y contrataciones durante la pandemia por la COVID-19. [2] 

Detalles sobre la implementación:

Durante el año 2018 se realizaron siete reuniones de las denominadas “Mesas de datos” en las que participaron 93 personas de 22 áreas distintas del Gobierno con el objeto de articular una estrategia común en materia de recolección y apertura de datos. Producto de dichos encuentros, se elaboró una estrategia de datos abiertos y cuatro guías para la identificación, uso, publicación y promoción de la apertura de los datos [3]. Durante el año 2019, la Secretaría General continuó trabajando con las diferentes áreas de gobierno realizando nuevos encuentros de la Mesa de datos, de las que participaron 79 personas.

Respecto a la promoción del uso de los datos, en total se realizaron nueve jornadas de talleres de utilización y reutilización de datos con más de 360 participantes, un hackathon con el fin de resolver los desafíos de movilidad utilizando los datos abiertos del Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires y un DataCamp donde se pusieron a disposición datos en materia de género, micro emprendimientos, movilidad y transporte, obras públicas, entre otros sets de datos del Gobierno. Diversas organizaciones de la sociedad civil y la academia tales como Fundación Conocimiento Abierto, Fundación Sadosky, Media Chicas, FLACSO, UTN, ITBA, entre otras, participaron en los talleres [4].

Finalmente, se pusieron a disposición y visibilizaron 14 nuevos servicios web basados en datos de uso libre y gratuito, generando nuevas visualizaciones entre los que se destacan el repositorio web “Historias con datos,” con más de 130 casos de visualizaciones basadas en el uso de datos abiertos de la CABA, así como la evolución del Distrito Tecnológico, entre otros [5].