Innovation Tag Opengov: digital government

The methodology of the “Brazil Transparency Scale” Survey consists of a checklist on 17 categories that cover all relevant aspects of the access to information regulation at the local level, the existence and functionality of the electronic Citizen Information Service (passive transparency), as well as the information disclosure of public funds, revenue, expenditure, public bidding, etc. (active transparency). The final evaluation score ranged from zero to ten.

The Administration of Rome had to decide how to use about 17 million euros for public works in the territory of the VIII District for projects concerning the environment, landscape and public green spaces, sustainable mobility and accessibility, urban regeneration and infrastructure, ideas or proposals for transversal projects. The innovation concerns the decision-making approach. For the first time, city users were involved in deciding how to allocate these resources.

In citizen participation projects, analysing contributions is often a huge challenge for administrations. CitizenLab has developed machine-learning algorithms in order to help civil servants easily process thousands of citizen contributions and efficiently use these insights in decision-making. The dashboards on our platform classify ideas, show what topics are emerging, summarise trends and cluster similar contributions by theme, demographic trait or location.

Launched in June 2018, Openstat Madagascar is an open data platform to highlight the "how" Government should release their data. Developed in a country where there is no Access to Information law, data available on the platform are all under Creative Commons and used as tools for Open Data advocacy program. Other national entities which want to make their data available to the public are welcome for partnership.

A new waste management system, driven by information. Bogota has evolved its cleaning and recycling scheme, generating a profound transformation in the way in which citizens needs are met and garbage collection is managed. This model is based on the effective use of data and information. This initiative has allowed greater transparency in the actions of involved public and private organizations, an intense collaboration to provide the best service and enabling citizens active participation.

The NODC is a data catalog fully compliant with DCAT-AP, the European standard for dataset metadata. It is open source, developed on GitHub, and consists of other open source projects. It can be reused on various levels of government and addresses an important issue with currently available data catalog implementations not in compliace with today’s metadata standards.

Not only is transparency in Brazil taken as the principle of publicity in public administration, but also as a Public Policy, led by integrated actions focused on achieving specific goals. Brazilian Government has reaped concrete quantitative and qualitative transparency-driven results: saving of resources, reformulation of public policies and inhibition of misconduct and corruption acts. The Transparency Portal is the core of the policy and central tool to promote results through transparency.

The Internet has facilitated online services for citizens, but it has also facilitated Internet searches of service-seeking citizens by public officials, triggering conscious or unconscious bias. Via freedom of information (FOI) requests, academics provided evidence of this phenomenon at work. Brazil's Comptroller General (CGU) responded by implementing a check-box in its online FOI requesting system so that requesters could choose to remain anonymous. This innovation is a first for FOI regimes.

Our innovation is a platform that takes data from different open data government sources, and proposes a way to use analysis, visualization, models, predictions for citizens, thereby linking data literacy processes with innovation.

The Open Data Policy of the Federal Executive Branch was established by the Decree N. 8.777/2016. Besides establishing the possibility of requesting public databases, the policy sets up the obligation for each body to draw up an Open Data Plan (PDA), which systematizes the planning for the opening of public data. The CGU monitors (through www.paineis.cgu.gov.br/dadosabertos) around 230 federal agencies covered by the decree, establishing regular and customized contact with public managers.