Disseminating Information on the OGP Principles and Promoting the Open Data Concept in an Accessible Manner (RO0029)

One of the reasons for the poor implementation status of some of the 2012-2014 commitments was the lack of adequate human and financial resources in the implementing agencies. As a consequence, the dissemination of information on the OGP principles and the promotion of the open data concept has been low.
Through this commitment the government aims to improve dissemination and promotion of the open data concept, of efforts to date and long term benefits.
The stakeholders include public local and central institutions, citizens, civil society, business sector, academic and research sectors.

Commitment 11. Awareness of OGP Principles and Open Data

Commitment Text:

Disseminating information on the OGP principles and promoting the open data concept in an accessible manner

1.     The Chancellery will organise 17 information sessions with the ministries and subordinate agencies, in collaboration with the designated open data responsible persons;

2.     The Chancellery will organise 17 mixed group workshops with representatives of the administration, the civil society and private sector to discuss challenges, identify solutions and promote best practices;

2.1. The Chancellery will organise 8 information sessions for the prefectures’ staff;

3.     The Chancellery will continue to organise the monthly public meetings of the OGP Club;

4.     The ogp.gov.ro website will be regularly updated to include relevant OGP or open data related efforts, both national and international;

5.     The Chancellery will promote the OGP principles through: leaflets, video tutorials, interviews, social media, online forums and other available means.

Responsible institution: Chancellery of the Prime Minister

Supporting institutions: Ministries, Open Data Coalition, private sector

Start date: July 2014                                      End date: June 2016

Commitment Aim:

This commitment aims to disseminate information on open government principles and enhance citizen participation and engagement in policymaking and governance.

The government organized a variety of activities to achieve the commitment’s goals, including information sessions, workshops, and events. These activities brought together numerous actors in Romanian government and civil society.^{[Note 35: Activities included: information sessions with ministries and subordinate agencies, mixed group workshops with stakeholder representatives, information sessions at the local level with prefectures, the Association of Romanian Towns, the Association of Romanian Communes, and representatives of small and medium enterprises, monthly OGP Club public meetings,]} Public officials also aimed to regularly update the OGP website with relevant national and international information and to promote OGP principles through leaflets, video tutorials, social media, online forums, and other available means.

Status

Midterm: Substantial

This commitment was substantially implemented at the midterm. Many milestones are ongoing, and are still progressing. The OGP Club convenes on a monthly basis and serves as a communication bridge between government and civil society. The OGP Romania website serves as the information platform on all action plan-related activities and is updated weekly. The government publishes minutes and information from meetings online and has held information sessions with various stakeholders. However, the public relations effort has mainly reached CSOs and public institutions that are already familiar with the OGP initiative. General public awareness on the partnership remains limited.

End of term: Substantial

Outreach activities taking place at the midterm have continued. In addition, the team from the Chancellery of the Prime Minister used a variety of platforms to notify interested parties about events, to promote OGP principles, and to raise awareness of OGP activities:

•       The OGP website (http://ogp.gov.ro/). Created in August 2013, it is the main communication tool for OGP implementation information. The website includes a calendar of events and key dates, information about all three national action plans, all OGP reports (self-assessment reports and IRM reports), links to the main partner sites (the OGP Club and the open data portal), a section containing useful resources, and a contact section, including contact data for all government officials involved with OGP.

•       The OGP Facebook account (https://www.facebook.com/RomaniaOGP/). Created in November 2014, it is used mainly to communicate information about upcoming events organized by OGP Romania or to post reports from these events.^{[Note 36: At the end of November 2016, the account had 1,800 likes, indicating room for more growth on Facebook. The account is fairly active with 373 posts since its inception two years ago, averaging a post every two days. And there are 90 user comments, again suggesting the potential for more user engagement. ]}

•       The OGP Romania Twitter account (@ogp_ro). Created in December 2015, it is used to communicate information about upcoming events organized by OGP Romania or to post reports from these events.^{[Note 37: At the end of November 2016, @ogp_ro had 81 tweets (about seven tweets per month), 122 followers, and 26 likes. It should be noted that Twitter is not a very popular social network in Romania (data for 2015 estimate 380,000 user accounts, but only 28,000 active users).]}

•       Club OGP (http://ogp.gov.ro/club-ogp/) was created in February 2014 as a platform for face-to-face interactions with all those interested in OGP. Since its founding, there have been 22 OGP Club meetings, with participants coming from public institutions, academia, civil society, the private sector, and international groups.^{[Note 38: A complete list of all the 22 meetings and their summaries are available at http://ogp.gov.ro/club-ogp/arhiva/. ]}

•       The OGP implementing team has also adopted a policy of joining and participating in OGP-related discussions that were started by other stakeholders. One example is through the active “Open-Data” (Date deschise) mailing list.^{[Note 39: The mailing list archive is available at https://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/date-deschise/).]}

•       The Chancellery of the Prime Minister in partnership with other stakeholders has organized events, including the OGP Romania Awards and the International Open Data Day.

The Chancellery of the Prime Minister had less success in completing activities that required the participation of multiple institutions. For example, there were cases in which ministries did not cooperate with the OGP team, such as in the case of negotiations with the Association of Romanian Towns. These talks were only partially successful (one meeting was organized in Oradea), while negotiations with the Association of Romanian Communes to raise awareness around OGP were unsuccessful.. This is particularly important for the next national action plan, which extends the action plan activities at the subnational level. From interviews with CSOs and civil servants, the IRM researcher observed that the broader public lacks awareness about OGP and OGP activities. Instead, awareness generally is restricted to a select group already involved in the process. To reach a wider audience, the OGP team’s public relations strategy will have to change.

Did it open government?

Access to information: Marginal

Civic participation: Marginal

Public accountability: Did not change

This commitment’s activities offered more access to specific types of OGP related information resulting in a marginal change in access to information. At the same time, stakeholders could use all the communication channels developed during the implementation of the commitment to provide input and feedback to government representatives. Increased opportunities for citizens to express views on the OGP processes marginally opened government with respect to civic participation, though it is unclear the extent to which feedback was incorporated in policymaking.

Carried forward?

The commitment is not carried forward to the third national action plan in its current form. A different approach will be attempted, using two projects funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) 2014–2020. One project will offer training courses to different stakeholders in the area of open data, and the other will develop and promote information materials and data visualization instruments.