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Welcome to our Open Government newsletter, where you will find relevant and up-to-date information related to Transparency, Citizen Participation, Accountability, Technology, and Innovation worldwide. This newsletter is compiled and edited by Datasketch’s Open Government team, composed by Laura Ortiz, Juliana Galvis and Juan Pablo Marín Díaz. You can unsubscribe or update your preferences, but first, check out the content we have for you. Below you will find links to relevant content we have recently come across, including a summary and our commentary. Also, if you want to read previous newsletters, you’ll find them here: Datasketch: Open Government Newsletter.

#Datasketch

Open Government for Dummies

We have launched a series of posts that look at the most basic concepts of Open Government. These are the documents we would have liked to have had when we started working on open government. From our own experience, we know that although the concept is fashionable and has been in the collective imagination for some years, when it comes down to it, many of us don’t know where to start. We hope that this series of articles will help you understand what openness policies are and how they are being implemented through examples, case studies and reviews of international documents. Here are five themes to get you started:

• Open government for dummies: why is an open government important?
• Open government for dummies: transparency
• Open government for dummies: participation
• Open government for dummies: open data
• Open government for dummies: accountability

If you like them or want to give us suggestions on topics to discuss, reply to this email and share the content with your acquaintances. Furthermore, if you want to read the previous newsletters, you can find them at Datasketch: Open Government Newsletter.

Now, we begin our review of the most relevant news of the moment.

#EVENTS

Image source: UN

United Nations Open Science Conference

The open science movement invites institutions, libraries and publishers to publish their content in open format to ensure unhindered access to scientific information for researchers and the general public. It has been driven by different sectors for some years now. Anyway, it has reached a critical moment and been enriched by the pandemic. In this context, the UN convenes its second open science conference, “From combating the pandemic to tackling climate change, “ which will occur virtually from 21 to 23 June. Here, different actors will engage in a dialogue focusing on what Open Science has learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and how it can be applied to actions addressing the global climate crisis at the interface of science, technology, policy and research. You can find the schedule and register at Open Science Conference 2021

United Nations World Data Forum 2021

The United Nations World Data Forum will take place in Bern, Switzerland, on 3, 4, 5 and 6 October. However, the call for short videos, visualisations, infographics, graphic stories or narrative (web-based) maps to highlight data innovations and initiatives is open until 25 July.

This event brings together data and statistics experts and users from multiple fields intending to stimulate innovation through data, mobilise high-level political and financial support for data and build a pathway to improve data for sustainable development. It will be organised around six themes: 1. New approaches to capacity building for better data, 2. Innovations and synergies in data ecosystems, 3. Leaving no one behind, 4. Understanding the world through data 5. Building trust in data and statistics and 6. How far have we come?

You will find all the information about this event at The United Nations World Data Forum 2021

#PODCAST

Anti-corruption data. The ILDA podcast

The Latin American Open Data Initiative, ILDA, launched a collaborative podcast. The Open Data Charter also participates in promoting OGP commitments that use open data to fight corruption in Latin America. Three episodes are available so far, which explore with key people from the regional ecosystem the current state of open data, challenges, opportunities and critical concepts; present the tool “Anti-Corruption Commitment Builder: 4 steps to generate open data OGP commitments to fight corruption (es)"; review how Colombia used the Anti-Corruption Commitment Builder for the creation of an OGP commitment. You can listen to the podcast on The ILDA Podcast (es).

#INFORMS

Government at a Glance 2021

The seventh edition of the “Government at a Glance” report, which the OECD publishes every two years, was released a few days ago. After a year in which governments have had to respond to and cope with the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, it places particular emphasis on the measures put in place to mitigate the impact of the resulting social and economic crisis.

The 2021 edition calls on governments to strengthen democracies and safeguard transparency and citizen trust. It includes indicators on public finances and employment and internationally comparable data on institutions, budget practices, human resource management, regulatory governance, public procurement, infrastructure governance, public sector integrity, open government and digital government. You can read the full report and the summary for each country at Government at a Glance 2021

Global Corruption Barometer: European Union 2021

Transparency International has published the results of its Global Corruption Barometer for the European Union. The survey, conducted between October and December 2020, polled more than 40,000 people and asked them about their personal experiences of corruption. The barometer has such worrying results. For example, more than half of EU citizens believe that a few private interests influence their government. Three out of 10 people claim to have paid a bribe or used a personal contact to access public services. It shows that the area of health has become the main focus of corruption, which is particularly alarming in the current situation. You can read the full report at: https://www.transparency.org/en/publications/gcb-european-union-2021. We also invite you to read the article “GCB EU: People worried about unchecked abuses of power.” where you will find visualisations of the report’s data, such as the one below.

Image source: Transparency International

#COMMUNITY

AVAAZ

Open government is not driven just from within; citizen action is essential, that is why we want to introduce you to Avaaz. A global online mobilisation community that has been integrating citizen-driven political action into global decision-making processes since 2007. They run campaigns in 15 languages, coordinated by a team of professionals working on six continents and volunteers around the world, through a variety of tactics and actions - signing petitions, funding media campaigns, sending messages, calling government officials, and organising protests and offline events - to ensure that people’s opinions and values are taken into account in matters of public interest. You can find out about their campaigns at: https://secure.avaaz.org/page/es/.

The New BCN Ateneu for Digital and Democratic Innovation

Barcelona has opened a new space focused on promoting, encouraging, and training in open technology and citizen participation, which will be managed in the coming years by the cooperative Colectic. The space, which has training classrooms and residencies, has presented a full schedule of activities, including, for example, citizen laboratories for a democratic city. They are face-to-face spaces in which there will be a dialogue on the democratic governance of digital technology and the role of the public in the management of technological policies. If you want to know more, you will find all the information at: https://canodrom.com/

#ARTICLES

Ensuring citizen participation in the Chilean Constitutional Convention

The Constitutional Convention is the constituent body in charge of drafting a new Political Constitution of the Republic after the national referendum held in October 2020. In this context, the Chilean media El Mostrador echoes something that from Datasketch seems relevant. We hope it will consider: More than 80 social organisations launch a document with “minimum points” to ensure citizen participation in the Convention. These points have a vital component of open government, as they request (1) That the instances for receiving proposals be safeguarded, (2) That citizen participation complies with attributes of legitimacy, (3) That citizen participation be incident, (4) That the transparency of the sessions and discussions be ensured, along with the information system of the agreements, (5) The design and implementation of a continuous information system, (6) That there be a technical body in charge of citizen participation, (7) That a budget associated with the technical body be safeguarded and that it be sufficient, and (8) That strategic alliances be generated with institutions that have experience and can provide support in participation mechanisms.

Football, yes, but without trampling on human rights, please.

Whether you are a football fan or not, football is often on everyone’s lips. In the last few weeks, the European Championship matches were played. Still, at the same time, on 20 June, Norway’s public news channel broadcast lived an extraordinary congress of the football federation on whether or not the national football team should boycott the World Cup in Qatar 2022. The boycott proposal was rejected. However, the grassroots turnout was huge, almost 500 teams voted, and the debate lasted for hours. What started as a sporting debate turned into a human rights debate about how hypocritical it would be to ignore any human rights violations not to displease the organisers or hosts of the event. They accused the federation of “covering up human rights abuses”, such as the persecution of LGTIBQ couples, of “corruption”, of “shying away from unwanted attention”, and of “only caring about money”. For more information, read Irene Peroni’s article for opendemocracy.net.

Source: Getty images

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