Developing Standards for Transparency and Open Data on Local Level (MK0108)

Status quo or problem addressed by the commitment: Due to nonexistence of transparency standards at the local level, the municipalities’ websites differ in the structure and published data. Also, there is no implementation of the Law on Open Data at the local level, though it also applies to the local self-government units. These circumstances do not provide adequate access to data of citizens’ interest. Also, there is neither predictability in searching data, nor they can be compared or processed. Main objective: Establishing standards for transparency and open data that will be beneficial for citizens as well as accepted and applied by all local government units. Brief description of commitment: Data and data sets arising from municipal responsibilities and which should be published on the web sites of all municipalities as well as in open data format will be identified by analyzing the legal framework and consultation with Civil society organizations and municipalities. Training of Civil society organizations for open data use as well as creating network among CSOs, local and central government, in order to ensure applicability and sustainability. OPG challenge addressed by the commitment: Implementation of the measure via wide consultative process, putting new technologies into operation (exclusively electronic publication of data and their processing in an open format) and increasing the benefits for citizens, businesses, local authorities and for the whole community in general. Reference to the global objectives of sustainable development: Reference to Objective 16 “Peace, justice and strong institutions” Target 16.6: Development of effective accountable and transparent institutions at all levels. The measures of this commitment contribute for improvement of transparency and accountability of the institutions through establishing transparency standards and their implementation for providing open data at the local level. Relevance: sector laws, Local self-government in the Republic of Macedonia, provides services to citizens in the ten vital areas and thus performs about one hundred and ten functions resulting in direct legal obligations to inform as well as transparent and accountable operation. Information, transparency and accountability of local self-government are the basic principles of good governance at local level, to which Republic of Macedonia is committed to with the ratification of the Additional Protocol for citizen participation in the work of local authorities that entered into force on 01.01. 2016. Macedonia generally has a favorable legal framework for information and consultation of citizens. To allow applicability to full capacity, institutional mechanisms and tools are necessary in order to raise the level of awareness of citizens as well as the transparency and accountability of local authorities. Ambition: By providing predictable, timely, useful, process able as well as open data on the performance of local authorities at all local self-government units (LGU) will increase the transparency and accountability of LGUs, will encourage citizen participation, will increase confidence, will encourage development in general, will increase the usefulness of the entire local community, including a financial benefit from the open data use.

For Commitment details, please see the IRM reports: Macedonia Mid-Term Report 2016-2018 and Macedonia End-of-Term Report 2016-2018