[okfn-discuss] Open Data Developments in Asia

Thu Sep 26 15:33:08 UTC 2013

Hi,

It was very nice to see you at OKCon.

Thank you for your mention on Japanese METI's report.  I was a member
of its related working group.  I think the potential and significance
of Open Data in Asia is huge, too.  Please keep in touch with us.

Masahiko Shoji
shoji at glocom.ac.jp

2013/9/26 Waltraut Ritter <writter at ymail.com>:
> The Open Knowledge Conference this year attracted delegates from 68
> countries, indicating that Open Data is indeed becoming a global movement
> around the world.
>
> How is Open Data adopted in Asia, the largest continent of this planet where
> 60 per cent of the world population live?
>
> Asia has some of the most advanced internet economies as well as some of the
> least developed countries with hardly any access to information or
> information infrastructure, neither analogue nor digital.
>
> At the OKCon, 26 participants from 11 Asian countries were present,
> including Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Russia. In this blog, I focus
> on selected North and South East Asian countries: New Zealand, Australia,
> Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines,
> Vietnam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, simply because getting reliable
> data from all 49 Asian countries would require much more research.
>
> The selected countries are all included in the Worldbank Knowledge Economy
> Index (KEI) with vastly different economic rankings.  New Zealand achieved
> the highest Knowledge Economy score, closely followed by Australia, Taiwan,
> Hong Kong and Japan, whereas Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar score lowest in all
> categories (ICT, education, economic incentive and institutional regime,
> innovation). Other key indicators relevant for Open Data development are the
> Corruption Perception Index (Transparency International), the World Internet
> Statistics and the Democracy Index (EIU) as a measure for general governance
> and functioning of government.
>
> According to the 2012 World Internet Statistics, the overall internet
> penetration in Asia is only 27.5 per cent, but this represents the largest
> numbers of users with more than 1 billion in one continent.  Internet
> penetration across the listed countries ranges from 1 per cent in Myanmar to
> 88 per cent in New Zealand, again with a wide gap between North and South
> East Asia (except for Singapore with 75 per cent).
>
> South East Asia has often been described as “Information black hole” in
> scholarly research on national information strategies, with many governments
> restricting or denying access to information to their citizens, based on the
> assumption that government information by default rather is a secret.
> Earlier this month, the government of Vietnam enacted the “Decree 72” which
> limits the use of blogs and social media to “providing or exchanging
> personal information”, and prohibits them from being used to disseminate
> news or even information from government sites. The law also bans content
> which could be “harmful” to national security or which opposes the
> government (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23920541). This kind of
> restrictions is based on the perception that government owns the information
> and can control its use.
>
> While North Asian countries including New Zealand and Australia mostly have
> Freedom of Information (FOI) laws in place (with the exception of Hong
> Kong); in South East Asia, FOI laws are more the exception than the rule.
> Sometimes there are laws, put they are not fully applied, e.g. in Thailand.
> The country’s Official Information Act (OIA) from 1997 was enacted but “the
> concept of freedom of information is totally new to both Thai state
> officials and to the people. Thai society thus needs some time to learn more
> about the Information Law. State officials have to understand the procedures
> of law enforcement better so that they know how to provide information
> services and disclose information to meet public requests. Meanwhile, people
> should recognize their right to know and know how to utilize the Information
> Act as a means of access to state information. Thai society should recognize
> information law as an essential part of establishing accountable and
> transparent government and as a crucial part of eventually building up civil
> society. “(Quote by N. Seriak, Office of Official Information Commission
> http://www.worldlii.org/int/journals/PLBIN/2000/29.html)
>
> In 2000, the law was therefore amended to include strategic guidelines on
> how to promote and develop the acknowledgement of the Act’s content, its
> utilization, the mechanism and the procedures to utilize the Act to meet
> people's right to access information. This example illustrates that the idea
> of open information also requires a new way of thinking about information,
> both for government officials and citizens.
>
> Only 4 of the listed 5 countries are full democracies according to the EIU
> index - New Zealand, Australia, Japan and Korea; they are also members of
> the OECD. The majority of countries in Asia falls into the categories of
> “flawed” democracies (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines,
> Indonesia, Cambodia), Singapore is a  “hybrid system” and at the bottom are
> authoritarian governments such as Vietnam, Laos (lowest overall score) and
> Myanmar, which is now currently moving into another phase of political
> governance. In August this year, Myanmar officially ended censorship,
> thereby jumping up to 151st out of 179 countries in the World Press Freedom
> index.
>
> The institutional regime and governance play a key role in the development
> of national open data policies; in some ways they define the bandwidth of
> what can be achieved in a country.
>
> A few examples illustrate how systemic restrictions embedded in
> institutional regimes limit the potential of open data:
>
> The Mekong River Commission (http://www.mrcmekong.org/), an
> intergovernmental organisation)  set up in 1995 by the Mekong countries
> (Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos) to collect and provide information about
> regional social economic development, regional water resource management,
> climate change adaptation and the long-term sustainable development of the
> Mekong River Basin, set up a Data Portal which is a rich  information
> storehouse about everything about the region.  Although it is a public
> organisation, it comes with a complicated fee structure, depending on who
> requests the information.  All information is copyrighted and the website
> states that there is only one authoritative “Master catalogue”. The
> reasoning is that only the MRC can ensure data quality and consistency, and
> external data users cannot contribute to achieve higher data quality.
>
> With the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) coming up in 2015, the 10 member
> countries are forming an economic space similar to the EU, which will also
> require more openness in cross-border information and data exchanges. Trade
> information is already openly assessable and in standardized format, but in
> a lot of other areas it is not.  So far, ASEAN only has adopted a rather
> vague “ICT Masterplan”, however, it is still a long way to achieve something
> like an “Open Data Masterplan” for the region. Member states are often not
> willing to share information among themselves, which was quite clearly
> demonstrated during this summer’s “haze” crisis, which put Singapore, parts
> of Malaysia and Indonesia under a thick blanket of black smoke from illegal
> slash-and burn practices whereby hundreds of hectares of land for palm oil
> and pulp plantations were cleared.  The health threatening haze led to
> heated exchanges between the Singapore and Indonesian governments.
>
> With Open Data, it would have been relatively easy to map and analyze the
> land data, identifying the companies owning the land and holding them
> accountable. The land concession maps are available – to the Indonesian
> government, which would not release the data citing issues of information
> security and transparency as reasons for not furnishing the maps. The
> benefit of data sharing and open access is not on the agenda; Indonesian
> Foreign Minister Marty Natelegaw said: "The concession map is a means to an
> end (...). So it's not a question of providing data to this and that. It's
> just us utilising the national system that we have…" (Channelnewsasia 14 Aug
> 2013)
> In another ministerial meeting where the problems of trans-boundary haze
> pollution were discussed, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik
> reminded member states to collaborate: "It's called sharing, you go through
> good times together, don't make noise to the world when things go bad. It's
> just like husband and wife; don't take your quarrel outside" (The Straits
> Times 20 June 2013). This exemplary “information black hole” tradition –
> don’t let the world know - will be more difficult with increased
> transparency, open data policies and the demand of citizens for information.
>
> Sometimes systemic limitations can be bypassed by civil society
> organisations: in Cambodia, the National Assembly rejected a draft law on
> FOI in January 2013 opposing the idea that the government should provide
> information on matters of public concern. Since the government didn’t want
> to share information with citizen, a civil organisation started their own
> Open Data portal. Open Development Cambodia is an “Open Data” website, “the
> first of its kind in mainland Southeast Asia. The global “Open Data”
> movement is based on the simple premise that data collected for public
> interest should be publicly available – without restrictions, and that
> information or “data” in the public domain should be freely available to
> everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions. We have no
> agenda, other than to offer you food for thought. Bon Appétit!”  (Quoted
> from their website http://www.opendevelopmentcambodia.net)
>
> Some governments are beginning to realize the relationship between free flow
> of information, open data and socio-economic development, and acknowledging
> open data as source for innovation and reduced transaction cost for the
> whole society.
>
> The Japanese METI has just a few weeks ago published a report on the
> economic value of open public information. It is only available in Japanese,
> but a translation would benefit many other countries in the region and
> beyond and demonstrate that Open Data can be a source for innovation and
> economic development. While the potential economic value of Open Data is one
> of the main drivers for governments in the more developed countries in Asia
> to push for new policies and re-use regulations, South East Asian countries
> are largely still debating access to data.
>
> Interestingly, the Philippines were the largest delegation at the OKCon from
> Asia. The country will launch their Open Data portal in November 2013. As a
> country with a strong, information aware civil society, Open Data could
> accelerate socio-economic development. The Philippines also score low on
> bureaucratic transparency, but internet penetration is relatively high
> (around 34 per cent) and the Aquino administration now states that the
> freedom of information (FOI) bill is a priority legislative measure and
> promised to endorse the bill to the Senate and the House of Representatives
> for passage into law soon.
>
> The diversity of countries in Asia, with highly advanced internet economies
> and mature democracies on one side, and countries with very limited
> information society readiness, could provide us with a lot of insights for
> understanding the interdependencies between openness and overall development
> of a country. Since the collaboration and knowledge sharing among Asian
> countries is relatively weak, perhaps an online sharing space such as the
> European EPSI platform http://epsiplatform.eu/ could increase the awareness
> about Open Data in Asia.
> The potential of Open Data in Asia is huge; both for emerging and developed
> countries, and the trajectory for each country highly depends on national
> information policies and cultures.
>
> Waltraut Ritter, Opendata Hong Kong
> waltraut at opendata.hk.com
>
> 26 September 2013
>
>
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