Canary Islands on the Road to a Open Government Act

Some of my observations and thoughts on this:

This week the public consultation on an #OpenGovernment Act of the Canary Islands started after very extensive preparatory work and diverse and reflective discussions at a very high level. The act should also combine different existing legal norms, e.g. on participation. Also the introduction of standards and metrics as well as sanctions to monitor compliance with #OpenGov criteria are being discussed within its framework.

Open Government should contribute as a culture (technique) and with mechanisms for the development of the political field of action “Agenda Canarias 2030” for sustainable development, but also within the challenges to recover from Corona/Covid socioeconomical impacts. (Dealing with the different Corona incidents on the different islands could also be an application field of dialogue processes after #OpenGov techniques). [Open Government and the opening of data along political priorities is unfortunately only coming into awareness in Germany in the recent past].

An Open Government Observatory for research and exchange of experience as well as for monitoring compliance with Open Government requirements is also being considered. Likewise, an Open Government Laboratory. Which I am particularly pleased about, since after my proposal for "Regional Open Government Laboratories" in the coalition agreement of the Federal Government of Germany (via Saskia Esken of the Social Democrats), a funding initiative was launched by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and now 13 laboratories have been established in Germany to research and typify Open Gov processes - also and especially in rural areas. (This would possibly be interesting for an EfC instrument of the EACEA. Especially the cooperation of local authorities in a European dimension is, in my opinion, still expandable). 

In addition, both the island of La Palma and the city of San Cristóbal de La Laguna on Tenerife have strategy plans for citizen participation as drafts currently in coordination. And the Canary Islands Statistics Institute (ISTAC) has just launched a data- and dashboard portal on SDG indicators. It uses the proven FLOSS (free software) solution OpenSDG, which was once developed by the UK and US governments with the Center for Open Data Enterprise (CODE).

At the beginning of the IV Action Plan (2020-2024) within Spain's participation in the #OpenGovernmentPartnership (since 2012), in which 20 autonomous regions and territories of the Spanish Association of Municipalities and Provinces are also participating (Germany only managed three(!) in the last 2nd NAP), there is thus already good activity on the Canary Islands under the leadership of the administrative unit for Transparency and Participation. In addition, the new minister of the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Civil Service at the national level, where the Open Government Partnership participation is located, comes from the Canary Islands.

Among the commitments in Action Plan IV, the Canary Islands have contributed two: the development of a network on Open Government and the consolidation of their open data from the different entities, coordinated by Mrs García at the Ministry of Public Administration, Justice and Security. (Santa Cruz de Tenerife also has an interesting contracting platform).

I also find the Canary Islands' activity in the area of open justice very exciting, a topic that is currently also being strongly accentuated by the OGP. In addition, the modernisation of justice and processes is also a topic within the framework of the German Council Presidency.

Marta Bonnet Parejo, Director General for Relations with the Administration of Justice in the Canary Islands Government, has made an interesting analysis of the landscape of Open Data in Spain and in other European Member States on open data re-use for the administration of justice for a roadmap for the implementation of open data in the administration of justice. Interestingly she discovered that in many places the current metadata structure of open data related to justice is suboptimal for re-use from the perspective of the administration of justice, because often data from the legislative and executive branches cannot be researched in an isolated way without intense hands on. [Unfortunately, Marta Bonnet Parejo and me missed each other during my stay in the Canary Islands in november a few weeks ago, but we are in contact and I have things to do there again soon :D]. This could also be of interest to our responsibilities for the control of norms and the modernisation of the administration, which have already specifically asked me about use cases of open data for reducing bureaucracy.

So a data reference catalogue or priority data catalogue for administrative modernisation of justice or open justice could be helpful. We from the Open Government Network Germany are trying to emphasise Open Justice for the upcoming 3. National Action Plan in GER and I am planning to include the subject of open data on the justice system as a topic at a workshop in January at the Leadership College of the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer.

Open data for the justice system would also be interesting from the point of view of Linked Open Data (i.e. cross-referenced and contextualised). The German open data portal GovData.de (which was also examined by Marta Bonnet Parejo) is currently planning an approach to Linked Open Data. Open Data for the justice system could be a prototypical use case.

Especially since a proven expert on Linked Open Data lives on the Canary Islands: José Luis Roda-García is an information scientist and head of the Computer and Systems Engineering Department at the University of La Laguna and director of the Canary Islands Open Data Platform. I met him in La Laguna years ago because I was interested in the state of Open Data in the Canary Islands and the work of the “Share-PSI” Network. The EU-funded network collected the different best practices for implementing the PSI Directive in the member states in the aftermath of the first recast of the directive, and Mr Roda did the research in Spain.

This might also be a logical follow-up to a proposal I recently made to the study group in the context of the impact assessment on the EU implementing act for High Value Data in the as appendix of the Open Data Directive (2nd recast PSI): After the experiences of the last years on the effect of the implementation of the PSI Directive, it would meanwhile be very desirable if the implementation of the High Value Data Regulation would be automatically monitored in the context of the oversight activities by EU (or others). In the form of a regulatory technology #RegTech, which either determines the implementation levels across Europe fully automatically through harvesting and crawling or at least strongly technologically supporting a reporting system (as with the Reportnet Eionet Central Data Repository for INSPIRE implementation, for example, or with the Office of the Ombudsman in Kenya on Open Data compliance). I hope one of upcoming CEF calls by INEA will possibly mach with that needs for open data RegTech.

The Canary Islands and Spain in general receive strong support for Open Data activities from an interesting institution: ASEDIE, the multisectorial information association, at the National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) at the Ministry of Economy and Digital Transformation. There, great hopes lie in Open Data for the economic recovery after the crisis - both as a raw material for the economy and to fight economic frauds.

In the Canary Islands, as in many other places, building data governance across all administrative units and beyond into the intelligent connected city aka smart city is a key issue. This is also the case in my home region, the European metropolitan region #RheinNeckar, which consists of 290 municipalities across three domestic state borders, where we are working on data governance and the creation of a self-supporting data ecosystem, also together with the business community, e.g. BASF SE. Many are looking at the broad wealth of knowledge in the Data Excellence Strategy of the City of Vienna (which, like Las Palmas, is also involved in the Open and Agile Smart Cities network).

There seems to be also interest in the OpenKids programme of LAAAB, the Open Government and Social Innovation Laboratory of the Aragón City Government in continental Spain, led by Mr Cortés, Director General of Open Government and Social Innovation. OpenKids unites on one platform activities in support of the Councils for Childhood and Youth in Aragon and gives children and young people a forum to freely express themselves and participate - especially along challenges addressed by the Sustainable Development Goals (actually a perfectly logical thing to do. After all, for whom else should good living conditions be tracked into the future than for children :D ?). This is to help young people explore their identity and strengthen their relationship to society. Through participation, they can develop skills such as empathy, communication, critical thinking, creativity and cooperation, and improve their self-esteem and self-image.

In collaboration with, among others, UNICEF, the “Raise my hand” initiative is also currently facilitated there, an online participation for children and young people that gives young people a voice during current restrictions imposed by Corona. For this purpose, a participation kit can be ordered for free at home, which guides kids through fun activities to solve challenges in society and the environment

I find all these activities very inspiring and encouraging and can only hope that similar vital cooperation will take place in Germany across its federal structures as also the development of 3. National Action Plan starts soon in january 2021.

The Canaries can only be congratulated on this and I have fingers crossed that the sparks will continue to fly to other actors on Canary Islands an beyond. And that the road will continue passing exciting landscapes of Open Government.