Free access to public government data is an innovative initiative for governments, civil society and the information and communication technologies (ICT) communities worldwide. The "Free access to public government data" initiative provides, among others, placing governmental data in a standard online format. The program aims to increase the transparency of institutions and to enable citizens take informed decisions. This action has been launched in many countries around the world, from leading countries such as U.S. and UK to developing countries.
In order to align to international trends, e-Government Center launched the open data platform date.gov.md. With this new platform, the Government offers citizens and businesses access to public data sets. The platform - a single point for open data - contains information produced by government bodies. On this basis, companies, organizations or individuals can develop their own applications and analysis designed to help improve citizens’ quality of life and encourage business development.
On the portal, the public data are structured according to the ministries: State Tax Service, Ministry of Economy, Ministry of Finance, National Health Insurance Company, e-Government Center, Tourism Agency, etc. Citizens can easily consult data sets, require useful information, express their opinions and propose manners of improving the platform. This way, citizens’ voice can be easily heard by the ministries and the dialogue between authorities and citizens is particularly important for useful open data.
Within the new platform, an innovative application can be accessed, one that allows tracking how the public budget is spent, the web version of Public Expenditure Database (BOOST) undertaken by the World Bank. The application helps citizens visualize data easily, data structured by year, sector, and type of procurement, economic groups and regions. (For details, please visit www.moldova.wb-boost.org).
Advantages:
- Citizens can make life decisions, like relocating, based on the information regarding certain areas’ crime rate;
- Citizens can track how the public budget is spent with the BOOST application;
- By using Open Data, journalists can revolutionize the media reports;
- IT developers can use these data to build innovative applications, to the benefit of citizens;
- Using open data information can support business development, the companies being able to take decision based on concrete information.