[open-government] Entrenching OpenData as Gov Policy

Tue Jul 5 06:59:03 UTC 2011

Hi Justin.

My english is far ideal but I will try to explain.

As open data/open government activist and, at the same time, person who
lives in a Russia that some people see as under "oppressive regime" I think
that I cal tell you reasons of such dismissal of OpenData.

The first reason.
Actually it's very simple. For example, OpenBata being promoted in post-USSR
countries not because people really need it and because they are ready for
it.
No. Actually most OpenData projects in post-USSR countries funded by
international NGOS or US Department of State.
And that is the problem. Since to use open data you need technical skills
and strong will to use your skills for common good. At the same time all
activists whom I know in Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, they don't know how to
create any advanced web project/mobile application and so on. They simply
get grants and hire students to write research papers about country
transparency or they organize something like round-tables and similar
melancholic activities.

Thats why they can't understand open data and it's much harder for them to
hire even one qualified programmer then group of students. Thats why
promoting open data and using it will put these people outside from current
financial schemes. And that's why it will take long time till technically
skilled and motivated people will appear.

Second one.
I heard a lot from people from US and Europe that "democracy is basic value
of human society". Well, I know democracy is valueble and prefer it to
something else, but it's not basic value especially for countries that have
long non-democratic history. Most people in post-USSR much more worried
about security, health, taxes, unemployment, social infrastructure,
bureacracy, corruption and so on. It's much closer to their basic values.
And it's much more understandable for them if you explain that opendata
could help to improve these topic without using word "democracy" at all.

Third reason.
It's hard to believe into transparency and open data promotion from not
transparent an not open political bodies. Is CoD transparent? Where are it's
open data?  Or probably USAID and DepOfState are transparent? As I remember
they don't publish information about projects they fund. Only sums,
countries and sectors but nothing else. If you ever seen
ForeignAssitance.gov website you could see that infomation about requests
and apporpriation only. Even European Union publish datasets of it's foreign
grants via FTS (Financial Transparency System).

Fouth reason.
Do you remember story about US Budget cuts and cuts of Electronic Government
Fund that is behind US domestic transparency projects like Data.gov and
USASpending.gov ?
Don't you want to compare EGF budget with money that USAID spends to promote
open government outside US?
That's the reason why so many people here finds current situation with
USAID/DepOfState activities especially strange.
US Government spends about $37M dollars to promote "Democracy, Human rights
and Governance" here in Russia (look here -
http://foreignassistance.gov/OU.aspx?FY=2012&OUID=197#ObjAnchor) and about
$3,656M for whole world (2010 numbers) but they don't have $26 for domestic
transparency?

That's why skilled people at least from Russia avoid taking part in whatever
organized by DepOfState or USAID. Sure we don't trust our russian leaders
but we don't trust good will of US Government too.

And to be honest those cuts greatly reduced US government activities
reputation here.  A few months ago as e-procurement expert I was invited to
Russian-American meeting about Russian Federal Contracting System. American
delegation talked about procurement transparency and I asked them about
Data.gov and USASpending.gov budget cuts? You know. They even did't know
that such websites exists!

So thats the reality. And that's why I don't believe in success of TechCamp
activities, at least for now.

2011/7/4 Justin Arenstein <justinarenstein at gmail.com>

> Hi everyone,
>
> I've just returned from the Community of Democracies<http://www.community-democracies.org/>congress in Vilnius (Lithuania), where I found that I was the only OpenData
> activist publicly pushing open access and open knowledge issues.
>
> The most disturbing part of this is that I was also the lone voice for
> OpenData at the new Civil Society Forum, or the existing Corporate Democracy
> Forum, at CoD, which both spent substantial time speaking about the role of
> social media and press freedom in the Arab Spring revolts, plus similar
> pro-democracy movements elsewhere across the world. Delegates to both fora
> had absolutely no understanding of OpenData or the importance it has for
> hacktivists or journalists. When I later raised the issue at the separate US
> State Department sponsored TechCamp <http://techcampglobal.org/> (which
> sought to give activists digital tools for circumventing oppressive
> regimes), there was a knee-jerk dismissal of OpenData as "irrelevant" and
> "all abut tram timetables". The dismissals were by the top policy makers at
> the Tech @ State <http://tech.state.gov/> team ... which shapes overall US
> policy on such issues. I had to argue hard that this was nonsense, and that
> access to development indicators, performance data, and things like mineral
> license data, contracting data, etc, were all essential to watchdog NGOS &
> journalists.
>
> I think that, if OKF intends entrenching OpenData as a fundamental "pillar
> of democracy" in governments around the world, it should make a concerted
> effort to play a role in future meetings, + must proactively engage with the
> Tech @ State folk (whether we agree with US foreign policy, or not). Open
> Data should be recognised as a core principle for responsible government,
> especially in the developing world, and not as a "nice to have" luxury as it
> is currently viewed.
>
> One way of doing this would be to produce a briefing pack for all of us to
> use when any of us are at these kinds of events.
>
> Cheers,
> Justin
>
>
> Justin Arenstein*
> *
> SA Mobile: +27-82-374-0812
> US Mobile: +1-650-336-5878 *
> *Skype: JustinArenstein
> Twitter: JustinArenstein <http://twitter.com/justinarenstein>
> Web: http://www.linkedin.com/in/JustinArenstein
>
>
>
> --

Best Regards,
  Ivan Begtin

email: ibegtin at gmail.com
twitter: ibegtin <http://twitter.com/ibegtin>
facebook: facebook.com/ibegtin
personal website: ivan.begtin.name
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/open-government/attachments/20110705/1e91553b/attachment-0001.html>