Open Data and Subnational Governments: Lessons from Developing Countries

Abstract

Much of the discussion in open government data, especially in developing countries, is at the national government level. However, in decentralized contexts, the local is where data is collected and stored, and when published, can generate impact. This synthesis paper refocuses the discussion of open government data to local contexts by analyzing nine country papers produced through the Open Data in Developing Countries research project. The study found out that there is substantial effort on the part of sub-national governments to proactively disclose data and that local context demands different roles for intermediaries and different types of initiatives to create an enabling environment for open data use and achieve impact.

Understanding the evolution of open government data research: towards open data sustainability and smartness

“…As the OGD movement spread, researchers started tackling open data policies and implementation . Although OGD policies in different agencies and countries have similarities, their main objectives and targeted outcomes are often not the same (Cañares and Shekhar, 2016). Limited systematic and structured research has been conducted on the differences in open data policies.…”

“…Huijboom and Van den Broek, 2011; Ruijer et al., 2017), and fewer investigations took place in developing countries (Maseh and Katuu, 2017; Nugroho et al., 2015). In this phase, there is an increase of open data initiatives in developing countries; however, the contexts, open data, technical platforms and standards, and government settings vary widely among different countries (Cañares and Shekhar, 2016), which makes it necessary to learn from a comparison of open data initiatives.…”

Journalists and the intermediation of open data

“…This reminds us of earlier arguments on globalisation (Escobar 2001), where political processes are institutionalised in one place but are invariably connected to processes beyond it. In the context of open government data, it has been argued that the local is important because, in decentralised contexts, the local is where data is collected and stored, where there is strong feasibility that data will be published, and where data can generate the most impact when used (Cañares & Shekhar 2016). In the case of other global goals, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in particular, the role of local contexts is seen as critical in transforming global goals to local reality (UN 2014).…”

“…In the case of open governments and writing from an analytical vantage point of transparency and accountability initiatives, Peixoto and Fox (2015) point to the nature of civic engagement as the main driver of downward accountability, and that institutional response is conditioned by willingness and capacity. Recently, in a synthesis paper on open data and sub-national governments across nine cases from six countries, Cañares and Shekhar (2016) argue that there are six facilitating factors for open data initiatives to succeed -political leadership, implementation structure, readily available governance data, technical capacity, existence of intermediaries, and implementation of concrete initiatives. The ADB synthesis paper (2017) agrees with these analyses, emphasising the importance of creating an enabling environment through a legal or policy framework for localisation, financing investments and building the capacity for all actors beyond local governments.…”

Open data intermediaries: coproduction in budget transparency

“…Studies that are concerned with the way that intermediaries act in the ecosystem of OD can be divided into two large groups: the aim of the first group is to identify possible benefits, obstacles, difficulties and the way they affect the results. Among these studies, the following can be cited: Mayer-Mayer-Schoenberger and Zappia, (2011), Espinoza et al (2013), Cranefield et al (2014), Canares and Skehkar (2015) and Schalkwyk et al (2015).…”