[open-government] Entrenching OpenData as Gov Policy

Tue Jul 5 08:08:02 UTC 2011

Hi Ivan,

I think you've made a number of really important points, that I agree with
100%.

I'm an investigative journalist by profession, attached to an organisation
that declines to accept funding from USAID, the State Dept., or any other
government agency. But, the reality is that many activists & organisations
across the world simply don't have the choice: the only funds available are
from state agencies.

Hillary Clinton was at the CoD meetings in Vilnius, and said there that the
US State Dept had spent $50m so far this year and planned to spend a further
$20m by the end of the year on giving activists digital tools / skills to
circumvent oppressive regimes. That makes them one of the largest donors in
the sector. Initiatives such as TechCamp and grants for digital projects are
therefore obviously part of US foreign policy -- which is ideological, &
self-serving (& which may also explain the focus on social media / blogging
at the expense of hard data initiatives). But, funding from Open Society, or
any other donor is also ideologically motivated.

The knack, I think, is to be aware of their motives, to diversify your
revenue streams so no one funder has too powerful a hold on you, and to have
the backing of cross-cutting global umbrella bodies such as OKF to help
shape or at least mitigate the donors' demands/control.

That's precisely why I think it is important for something like OKF and its
affiliates to have a voice at these gatherings, to make the case for
"agnostic" OpenData principles.

I'm new to the OpenData movement (& therefore probably sound naive), but the
reason I joined was because after having worked in conflict zones and
societies in transition for the past 20 yrs I am convinced that access to
qualitative data / information is crucial for citizens who want to hold
authorities accountable. Citizens cannot myth-bust or fact-check or make
informed decisions if they don't have access to data. Social media are great
for organising flash mobs. Data helps us engage in coherent, rational
decision-making afterwards.

CoD is not an ideal organisation, and is probably very flawed --- but, what
it does do is reach beyond the "usual suspects" in the EU and US. There are
probably better organisations that do the same. My suggestion was simply
that OKF consciously reach out to such vehicles, to put OpenData on the
agenda.

Oh, and in reply to your very valid point about the lack of tech skills to
exploit OpenData in many transitional societies > my favourite quote from
CoD Vilnius was by a local informatics professor, Algimantas Juozapavicius:
"I have a super computer standing idle. Do you have any project ideas for
it, or my team of computer programmers?"

He says there is also an under-utilised super computer at his counterpart
university in Minsk (Belarus). It would be brilliant if OpenData activists
in the region connected with these guys.

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

On 5 July 2011 08:59, Ivan Begtin <ibegtin at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
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