Capability: Sub-national¶

The following indicator is under consideration for this pilot edition of the Barometer: To what extent do cities, regional, and local governments have capacity to effectively manage data?

Definitions

Definitions and Identification

For this indicator look for examples of strategies, initiatives or activities that demonstrate that sub-national and local governments have the capacity to effectively manage data. These capacities can refer to open government data, as well as other kinds of data and data flows.

Among different kinds of data sharing, this indicator will focus on open government data, B2G (business to government), B2B (business to business), G2B (government to business), crowdsourced data and data to and from academic and science environment flows.

Questions of this indicator track what kind of examples and evidence of those capabilities were found.

Research Guidance

Explore the landscape of the local data environment by scanning and identifying selected data capabilities in main cities, provinces, states or regions. If there is evidence of some local capacities, in the first question of the indicator ('To what extent do city, regional, and local governments have the capability to effectively manage data?') note if they tend to be limited or ad-hoc capacities, or whether there are sustained and institutionalised capacities in local environments. You can review previous indicators on national capabilities to refresh conceptual definitions.

Starting points

Sources
- OGP Local initiative can guide you to local data strategies.
Search:
- Local e-government portals
- Local open data portals
- Mentions to sub-national governments on national data strategies
Consult:
- Data experts
- Local government civil servants
- Local data communities
- Data policy makers
- Chief information officers (CIO) of local companies

What to look for?

Look for evidence that can answer the following questions:

Is there evidence of cities, regional and local governments having capacity to collect, manage, share and open data?
Is there evidence of isolated capabilities? Or is there enough evidence to unveil sustained and institutionalised capacities in local environments?
Does this evidence of local open data capacities encompass...
- Local open data policies and laws
- Local open data portals
- Dedicated open data local agencies
- Training programs for local civil servants on open data issues.
- Strategies and actions to proactively support open data data re-use, such as
  - Challenges for data re-use
  - Hackathons
  - Dissemination effors
  - Working groups
  - Funding schemes
  - Partnerships with different stakeholders: private sector, academy, media, etc.
Does this evidence of local shared data capacities encompass...
- Shared data local policies and laws, including contract guidance.
- Data sharing tools.
- Dedicated agencies or institutions to guide and promote data sharing.
- Dedicated programs to encourage data sharing.
- Strategies and actions to proactively support shared data re-use, such as
  - Challenges for data re-use
  - Hackathons
  - Dissemination efforts
  - Working groups
  - Funding schemes
  - Partnerships with different stakeholders: private sector, academy, media, etc.
Does this evidence on sharing data capacities involves some of the following data flows?
- Open government data
- B2G (business to government)
- B2B (business to business),
- Crowdsourced data
- Data for scientific research

National and sub-national considerations

This indicator is focused on sub-national and local capabilities. In the last part of this indicator ('How widespread are local capacities to effectively manage data?') you will have to assess if the examples found refer only to some isolated local governments or if they can be found throughout the whole country.

Question sub-components

Show/hide supporting questions

Existence

To what extent do city, regional, and local governments have the capability to effectively manage data?
- There is no evidence of capability to effectively manage data.
- There is evidence of limited or ad-hoc capability to effectively manage data.
  Supporting questions: Please provide URLs of this evidence and briefly explain your answer.
- There is evidence of sustained and institutionalized capability to manage data.
  Supporting questions: Please provide URLs of this evidence and briefly explain your answer.

Elements

Kinds of capacities:
There is evidence of local governments having open data initiatives. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer 'Partially' if local open data initiatives tend to lack some key elements, or if they are in place, but they are not as widespread as the other local data management capabilities assessed in this indicator.

Supporting questions (conditional)

If Partially or Yes: Please provide evidence and a brief explanation that support your answer.
There is evidence of local governments having current open data policies in place. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer 'Partially' if local open data policies tend to lack some key elements, or if they are in place, but they are not as widespread as the other local data management capabilities assessed in this indicator.

Supporting questions (conditional)

If Partially or Yes: Please provide evidence and a brief explanation that support your answer.
S: Sub-national data-sharing (No, Partially, Yes) Answer 'Partially' if local sharing data laws, policies, regulations and guidance tend to lack some key elements, or if they are in place, but they are not as widespread as the other local data management capabilities assessed in this indicator.

Supporting questions (conditional)

If Partially or Yes: Please provide evidence and a brief explanation that support your answer.

If Partially or Yes: Please indicate what kinds of data flows these local frameworks involve.
There is evidence of local governments having rules and or guidance in place for consistent data management and publication. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer 'Partially' if local data management regulations, guidance and frameworks tend to lack some key elements, or if they are in place, but they are not as widespread as the other local data management capabilities assessed in this indicator.

Supporting questions (conditional)

If Partially or Yes: Please provide evidence and a brief explanation that support your answer.
There is evidence of local governments providing training to civil servants on data literacy and skills. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer 'Partially' if local training programs lack some key elements, or if they are in place, but they are not as widespread as the other local data management capabilities assessed in this indicator.

Supporting questions (conditional)

If Partially or Yes: Please provide evidence and a brief explanation that support your answer.
There is evidence of local governments providing support for data re-use. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer 'Partially' if local government support for data re-use lack some key elements, or if they are in place, but they are not as widespread as the other local data management capabilities assessed in this indicator.

Supporting questions (conditional)

If Partially or Yes: Please provide evidence and a brief explanation that support your answer.

If Partially or Yes: Please indicate what kinds of data sources and types local governments support for re-use.

Extent

How widespread are local capacities to effectively manage data?
- No cities or regions show capacity to effectively manage data.
- The examples given are exceptions: the majority of cities and regions do not have the capacity to effectively manage data.
  Supporting questions: Please provide URLs of this evidence and briefly explain your answer.
- The examples given represent common practice: many cities or regions have comparable capacity to effectively manage data.
  Supporting questions: Please provide URLs of this evidence and briefly explain your answer.

Indicator Justification

Sub-national and city governments are often responsible for delivering key services that have a critical impact on citizens’ everyday lives. Local governments have closer relationships with the people making them more aware of the challenges in communities and the need for data strategies. This closeness is also a good background and starting point for them to develop local data strategies.

The Open Data Charter, in its 5th principle, states that given this closeness governments have a crucial role in supporting citizen engagement on open data (Open Data Charter, 2021), providing local open data, as well as combining it with national-level data. The Open Government Partnership (OGP), highlights the importance of open local data for open governments, through its initiative OGP Local, which invites participants to "learn how to use open government values such as transparency, accountability, responsiveness, and inclusion to better meet the needs of the citizens they serve."

For governments to accomplish this, there is a need for local data strategies that are strongly dependent on sub-national and local governments capacities. Canares, M. and Shekhar S. (2015), in their research on sub-national open data initiatives in developing countries, emphasise on the capacities and resources needed by local level governments to carry on successful open data strategies.

These foundations of the importance of local governments to manage Open Data can also be extended to other kinds of data sharing, such as Business to Government or Business to Business flows.

This indicator also provides continuity with ODB.2013.C.CITY which asked "To what extent are city, regional and local governments running their own open data initiatives?"

Development rough notes

You can put notes on developing the indicator here. These are for internal use only.

@Amy Johnson I liked the idea of having a 4 options question on Existence, to measure how many cities have open and shared data capacities. I was thinking that in on Extent we could have two questions on the engagement (that would be similar to meaningful impact sub-question), one for Open Data and another for shared data. "There is evidence that civil society, private sector and media are engaged with Open Data in the city". It is not strictly about capacities, but it reflects them.

collect, manage, share, and open data

Another Extent option could be if Cities, State/provinces and or local governments show these capacities

Contract guidance

Data sharing tools

Support center for data sharing (EU)

B2B

B2G

Data flows to Open Science and academyc research

Open Data Maturity Index

3.1 ▪ Guidelines are in place to assist publication at national, regional and local levels

### OURdata

 OECD governments should focus on establishing data federation models that facilitate data discoverability, while keeping the right levels of data autonomy at the local level and quality assurance at the central level.

Several OECD countries have demonstrated, however, that different power structures and political cultures do not need to be a barrier to the effectiveness of open data initiatives or the publication of data on a single central/federal open government data portal. For example, in France, the central government mandated cities and local governments with more than 3 500 inhabitants to open up their data as part of the 2018 Digital Republic Bill. In the federal state of Mexico, Art 9 of the 2015 Open Data Presidential Decree laid the foundation for the Open Mexico Network, consisting of the government, 25 federal states, 88 autonomous agencies, and municipalities. The network was established as a way to explore the potential of greater collaboration in the context of open data among the federal and state levels of government (OECD, 2018[25]). After having secured the alignment of policy visions across countries with federal or more decentralised administrative systems, several governments can deploy technical tools that facilitate the availability of open data from different platforms and sources to a federal/central OGD portal, reduce data siloes, and increase the discoverability and access to the data. This is a way to provide incentives to local administrations or sustain the development of their capabilities for better implementation. For example, today, countries including Canada, Sweden and Australia harvest data from sub-national OGD portals to their main portal. This data federation model approach can help in standardising government data across different levels of government, while maintaining a certain level of quality in line with central standards.

Local SCO and Data Initiatives?

https://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/JoCI/article/view/3242/4252

Conclusion

The cases covered in this review showed how open government data can potentially unlock economic, social and political benefits. City and provincial governments have improved planning of transportation, electricity and other services. They have also enabled businesses to use government data to innovate on solutions to these governance problems. The case studies considered in this paper also demonstrate how national and sub-national governments have adopted similar approaches to open government data - one that rely on websites and portals to publish government data. However, upon closer examination one finds that the contexts of these developments differ vastly, as the discussions above demonstrate, as do the capacities of the governments and intermediaries involved. The cases highlighted three insights in this regard.
- There is substantial effort on the part of sub-national governments to proactively disclose data, however, how this is implemented delimits citizen participation, and eventually, use.
- Governance context demands different roles for stakeholders and different types of initiatives to create an enabling environment for open data at the local level. Political, organisational, legal, economic, technical and social contexts will either support or undermine open data initiatives, especially at the level of decentralised governance .For example, national laws and pronouncements directing sub-national governments to disclose data are important, but without the technical capacity of government personnel to make this happen, this will not likely result to compliance. Before open data use can occur, open data provision has to take place. As indicated earlier, leadership is crucial, but this has to be complemented with available resources – technical, human and financial – because open data initiatives are not inexpensive. Sub-national governments with resources will find it easier to make proactive disclosure happen and generate results, but admittedly, this is not the case in all local governments in developing countries. The status of decentralised open data in developing countries brings back Manor’s (2013) argument regarding the promise of decentralisation: It can only work if at the sub-national level of government, there are substantial powers matched with sufficient resources
- The capacity of government and its attitude towards proactive data disclosure is one of the critical challenges for sub-national governments in developing countries.
- Further research
  - there is limited understanding on how, like in the case of governance reforms in decentralized contexts, the different levels of governance (e.g. national, province, district, city, municipality) interact to create an environment that would be conducive to greater openness in sub-national data or to greater openness of sub-national governments.
  - weave a limited understanding of how different stakeholders access and use open data, or if not, government data, in sub-national contexts.
  - here is a need to define, test and evaluate hypotheses on achieving impact through open data, especially at the sub-national level where the relationship between government and citizens is more proximate and pronounced. In the cases mentioned in this paper, little is said about how open data is theorized to achieve transparency or better service delivery, and how this change can be measured when change occurs. In building the case for open data, we need to have more clarity about how open data can lead to the desired political, social and economic impact.

### Open Data Charter

City and local governments are often responsible for the delivery of programs and services that citizens use or encounter in their daily lives (e.g. sanitation services, public transportation, traffic regulations, etc.). As such, city and local governments have an important role to play in engaging citizens on issues related to open data, and in encouraging citizens to seek out information about open data initiatives at all levels of government, in order to support better informed public engagement. The value of city or local government data can also be amplified when it is combined or compared with national-level data.

### ODB

C8) To what extent are city, regional and local governments running their own open data initiatives? [ODB.2013.C.CITY] Evidence and scoring criteria and thresholds:

Score > 0 There should be evidence of at least some open data activity at the city or regional level, even if just incipient. Score > 3 There should be evidence of open data initiatives in at least the national or state capitals. These should be running their own open data initiatives with dedicated data catalogues. Score > 5 There should be evidence of a number of different cities or regions across the country with open data initiatives beyond the national or state capitals. These may be predominantly run by civil society, or may have limited resources dedicated to them. Score > 8 There should be evidence of the presence of open data initiatives in most of the largest cities and regions in the country as well as in other smaller ones. The majority of these should have strong political backing and be well resourced with their own dedicated policies. Some level of coordination between these initiatives and the national one is also expected.

Scoring Guidance

Open government data does not just involve central government. Regional, city and local government may all adopt open data initiatives. The criteria of an open data initiative are the same as in the C1 question.

You can use the list of the largest cities by population for each country from Wikipedia.

For a score of 10 check the top-10 cities by population (10 largest States by population for federal systems), but also activity at some slower ones.

Source Guidance

Conversations with open data specialists in civil society organizations or individuals who are directing open data campaigns; Conversations with government officials working in open data offices or projects; Conversations with NGO officers with expertise in open-data and access-to-information issues, and investigative journalists; Searching for data portals and platforms run by cities or regions; Reports published by the media, academic and policy journals, and development and multilateral bodies (e.g.: Web Foundation, Open Knowledge Foundation, Sunlight Foundation, etc.); The lists of known Open Government Data portals at Open Geo Code, Open Data Inception and DataPortals.org; Maps of subnational open data initiatives, such as the ones for France or Spain; Open Data in Cities report from the European Data Portal; Regional open data communities, such as: The European Open Data portal and community; The ILDA open data initiative for Latin America; The Caribbean open data Institute; The Africa Open Data, Open Data for Africa, Open Data Francophone, Open Government in the Arab States, Data-Driven Innovation in MENA and Open MENA networks.

Handbook

Anything after the Handbook contents level 1 heading below will be included in the research handbook.

# Handbook contents

## Definitions and Identification

For this indicator look for examples of strategies, initiatives or activities that demonstrate that sub-national and local governments have the capacity to effectively manage data. These capacities can refer to open government data, as well as other kinds of data and data flows.

Among different kinds of data sharing, this indicator will focus on open government data, B2G (business to government), B2B (business to business), G2B (government to business), crowdsourced data and data to and from academic and science environment flows.

Questions of this indicator track what kind of examples and evidence of those capabilities were found.

## Research guidance

Explore the landscape of the local data environment by scanning and identifying selected data capabilities in main cities, provinces, states or regions. If there is evidence of some local capacities, in the first question of the indicator ('To what extent do city, regional, and local governments have the capability to effectively manage data?') note if they tend to be limited or ad-hoc capacities, or whether there are sustained and institutionalised capacities in local environments. You can review previous indicators on national capabilities to refresh conceptual definitions.

### Starting points

Sources
- OGP Local initiative can guide you to local data strategies.
Search:
- Local e-government portals
- Local open data portals
- Mentions to sub-national governments on national data strategies
Consult:
- Data experts
- Local government civil servants
- Local data communities
- Data policy makers
- Chief information officers (CIO) of local companies

### What to look for?

Look for evidence that can answer the following questions:

Is there evidence of cities, regional and local governments having capacity to collect, manage, share and open data?
Is there evidence of isolated capabilities? Or is there enough evidence to unveil sustained and institutionalised capacities in local environments?
Does this evidence of local open data capacities encompass...
- Local open data policies and laws
- Local open data portals
- Dedicated open data local agencies
- Training programs for local civil servants on open data issues.
- Strategies and actions to proactively support open data data re-use, such as
  - Challenges for data re-use
  - Hackathons
  - Dissemination effors
  - Working groups
  - Funding schemes
  - Partnerships with different stakeholders: private sector, academy, media, etc.
Does this evidence of local shared data capacities encompass...
- Shared data local policies and laws, including contract guidance.
- Data sharing tools.
- Dedicated agencies or institutions to guide and promote data sharing.
- Dedicated programs to encourage data sharing.
- Strategies and actions to proactively support shared data re-use, such as
  - Challenges for data re-use
  - Hackathons
  - Dissemination efforts
  - Working groups
  - Funding schemes
  - Partnerships with different stakeholders: private sector, academy, media, etc.
Does this evidence on sharing data capacities involves some of the following data flows?
- Open government data
- B2G (business to government)
- B2B (business to business),
- Crowdsourced data
- Data for scientific research

### National and sub-national considerations

This indicator is focused on sub-national and local capabilities. In the last part of this indicator ('How widespread are local capacities to effectively manage data?') you will have to assess if the examples found refer only to some isolated local governments or if they can be found throughout the whole country.