www.opencoesione.gov.it www.dps.tesoro.it/opencoesione

MONITORING, TRANSPARENCY

AND CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT:

THE «OPENCOESIONE» INITIATIVE

Simona De Luca, Luigi Reggi, Federico Tomassi

Department for development and economic cohesion (DPS)

European Commission – DG Regio

Brussels, 11th December 2013

OUTLINE

• OpenCoesione: an Open Government initiative focused

on transparency, collaboration and partecipation

• The web platform (from 2007-13 to 2014-20)

• Live tutorial

• Some examples of reuse and citizen monitoring

is an Open Government initiative

Availability of machine-readable open data on projects

funded by public resources helps:

• fostering transparency in the use of funds

• improving decision making and policy design

• encouraging the creation of new tools and services

for citizens

• increasing involvement of stakeholders in ensuring

efficient and effective use of funds

OPEN DATA AND OPEN GOVERNMENT

MAJOR INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVES

G8 leaders signed the Open Data Charter on 18 June 2013.

The Open Data Charter sets out 5 strategic principles that all G8

members will act on (data published openly by default, quality

increase, re-use of data) in order to unlock the economic potential

of open data, support innovation and provide greater

accountability.

OGP was launched in 2011 to provide an international platform

for domestic reformers committed to making their governments

more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. In

participating countries, government and civil society are working

together to develop and implement ambitious open government

reforms.

The new Public Sector Information Directive (2013)

makes accessing public data from any level within the EU:

- cheaper (with fees, if anything, set at just marginal costs)

- easy to use, with automatic right to re-use

- wider in scope (valuable cultural material, from libraries,

archives and museums)

is part of all these initiatives

EU AND ITALIAN FRAMEWORK

2007-2013 Regulations on Structural Funds (n.1083/2006

art. 69) require to Managing Authorities to communicate

information on beneficiaries of EU support and list the

minimum level of information that has to be published

Italian Digital Agenda (2012) requires transparency on the

use of public resources.

Piano d’Azione per la Coesione (2012) includes publication

of open data on financial information, ouput and results of all

the projects financed.

2014-2020 Regulations on Structural Funds (art. 115)

require to Managing Authorities to communicate

information on beneficiaries of EU support in an OPEN DATA

FORMAT (licence to reuse & metadata) and list the minimum

level of information that has to be published (Annex VI) with

more details respect to 2007-2013.

www.opencoesione.gov.it

Information about the implementation

of cohesion investment projects

(financed by EU & national

resources), from users’ point of view:

• description

• resources (assigned and spent)

• places

• themes

• public and private recipients

• timeframes

FROM NAVIGATION TO RAW DATA More information for skilled users

• Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC BY-SA) 3.0

license allows users to reproduce, distribute and communicate

data and analysis, as well as to modify and adapt or even use

data for commercial purposes.

• Metadata providing information about every variable for correct

use and re-use of them (structures of datasets, description of

variables, explanatory notes)

PROMOTING RE-USE OF PUBLISHED DATA Both formal and substantial instruments to support domino effect

• Within the Administrations committee of the 2007-2013 National

Strategic Framework, a «Technical Group» was established in

order to improve, disseminate and reuse data and information on

implemented projects

• Jointly chaired by DPS and IGRUE (with tight interaction)

• Composed by delegates of all Managing Authorities of EU and

national funds directly involved on monitoring + communication

officers of OPs

• Plenary and bilateral meetings to deal with general

and specific issues on data quality based on detailed analyses

TECHNICAL GROUP

ON MONITORING DATA QUALITY

www.dps.tesoro.it/opencoesione/gruppo_tecnico.asp

National unitary

monitoring system

Ministry

Interior

Ministry Education University

and Research

…

Veneto Regional

Admin

Calabria Regional

Admin

Marche Regional

Admin

Ministry Dev.t

NATIONAL UNITARY MONITORING SYSTEM

• Federate architecture:

a system of systems

• Based on

data exchange protocol

shared by all systems

• Reinforced link between centre and managing authorities,

based on greater awareness of monitoring importance

• Stronger motivation for managing authorities to enhance

high-quality data from local implementing bodies, as their

commitment to improve regularly quality of information

provided to the system is crucial in order to achieve better

spending

• From multiple requests of data at different public entities to

public availability in a single access point

FIRST OUTCOMES Publishing data from the national monitoring system

Monitoring System

93 variables downloadable in CSV format

32 variables downloadable from project search on OC

classifications by CUP system

Identification, classifications by NSRF, funding, timing, locations, subjects

Var1 …………………… Var32

Var1 …………………… Var93

Var1 ……………………………… VarN

AVAILABLE DATA ON IMPLEMENTED PROJECTS A selection of different sets of variables

classifications by CUP system

Identification, classifications by NSRF, funding, timing, locations, subjects

• No data on output, results or other indicators related to

single projects (only a selection of thematic statistical

indicators). The monitoring system collects some of these

information (i.e. national output common indicators linked to

CUP, a (semi)unique code to identify projects) but critical issues

have been detected, preventing us from making data public at

the moment.

• OpenCoesione does not provide data on project results in

terms of citizens’ quality of life. Current structural funds

Regulation did not require results to be announced and

measured, so that currently available monitoring system do not

collect such information.

What’s NOT NOW in OpenCoesione? Actual output and results

OPENCOESIONE FROM 2007-13 TO 2014-20 (1)

Extra info

(i.e. project summary

if published locally

as open data)

2007-13

List of beneficiaries

(Source: Local

monitoring system)

List of beneficiaries

(Source: Local

monitoring system)

List of beneficiaries

(Source: Local

monitoring system)

List of beneficiaries

(Source: Local

monitoring system)

National unitary

monitoring system

Ministry

Interior

Ministry Education University

and Research

…

Veneto Regional

Admin

Calabria Regional

Admin

Marche Regional

Admin

Ministry Dev.t

OPENCOESIONE FROM 2007-13 TO 2014-20 (2)

Widget

Widget

2014-20

List of beneficiaries

(Art. 115 Gen. Reg.)

List of beneficiaries

(Art. 115 Gen. Reg.)

National unitary

monitoring system

Ministry

Interior

Ministry Education University

and Research

…

Veneto Regional

Admin

Calabria Regional

Admin

Marche Regional

Admin

Ministry Dev.t

Extra info

(i.e. project summary

if published locally

as open data)

FROM TRANSPARENCY

TO PARTICIPATION

• Citizen engagement is essential for open government

and effective development, strengthening the quality

of policymaking and the "science" of service delivery

with improved social accountability

• It requires a committed and responsive government:

there is often little discussion about to how to design

and implement participatory processes that deliver

their expected benefits

Availability of open data on public spending is the base to

successfully build transparency, increase accountability and

overcome a long history of mistrust in many different

development projects all around the world

USER COMMENTS

FIRST SEEDS OF CIVIC MONITORING Uploading user-generated contents

Mailing list dedicated to

civic monitoring initaitives

(public and open to

everyone!)

monithon

@googlegroups.com

INDEPENDENT PLATFORM WWW.MONITHON.IT Based on Ushahidi

Data Journalism Days are seminars for journalists, policy

analysts, researchers and students interested in using information

on investment projects funded by cohesion policy

Aimed at understanding what kind of data is available and at

promoting mashups between OpenCoesione data and other

sources in order to draft analyses, graphics, maps and tell stories

PROMOTING A KNOWLEDGE-BASED SOCIETY Actions to help the role of information intermediaries

Involvement of high schools in an experimental civic monitoring

that mixes civic education, digital competencies and data

journalism in order to understand and communicate, with

innovative methods, how cohesion policy affect neighbourhoods

Development of digital competencies (data skills, data

journalism skills)

Implementation of a project work on storytelling about

projects funded by cohesion policy

Soon online at: www.ascuoladiopencoesione.it

«AT SCHOOL OF OPENCOESIONE» An experimental project in high schools

• 1,000,000 page views

• 270,000 visits

• 220,000 unique visitors

• 2 minutes average time on the site

• 4% from outside Italy

• 1,200 downloads of complete

“projects” CSV file

In the first year of activity (July 2012 to July 2013)

ACCESS TO OPENCOESIONE WEB PORTAL

• Data from monitoring systems of EU-funded projects are updated

every 2 months by the Administrations in charge

of managing the funds, and are made available in OpenCoesione

approximately 3 months after the reference date.

• New allocations from Italy’s National Fund for Development

and Cohesion are published concurrently with Interministerial

Resolutions.

• Currently available information on OpenCoesione is updated to

August 31st 2013.

HOW OFTEN ARE DATA UPDATED ? As much as possible in real time

PROJECTS financed by cohesion policy

monitoring date: 31.8.2013

updated every 2 months

709,718 # of projects

65.2 billion Euros - Financing

24.1 billion Euros - Payments

WHAT’S NOW IN OPENCOESIONE ? EU structural funds + national resources for cohesion policy

Total projects and funds

by overall cohesion policy

or within user’s queries

Interactive graphs

for immediate distribution

of investments and number

of projects by nature and

theme

Easy overview

of distribution table

of investments by nature

and theme

Direct search of public

authorities in charge for

programming and other

bodies involved in the

deployment of projects

Direct access to locations

through interactive maps

and search to discover

the number of projects

undertaken,

the amount of overall

investments in the place

and the list of projects

Top projects listing

in home page

MAIN CONTENTS: HOMEPAGE Highlights of data provided

In the footer, links to contents

translated into English:

• introduction

to OpenCoesione

• complete FAQs

The web platform is available

only in Italian, but…

CONTENTS AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH

For each theme ( 13 groups

of 2007-13 EU priority themes)

a selection of territorial indicators

is available in order to combine

project data with statistical proxies

of the general results of cohesion

policies

Highlighted indicators assure

comparable information among

regions and to national averages

In 2014-2020, stronger association

between projects and output/result

indicators

MAIN CONTENTS: THEMATIC INDICATORS

MAIN CONTENTS: PROJECT SEARCH E.g.: transportation infrastructures over 100.000 € in Naples

MAIN CONTENTS: PROJECT AT A GLANCE

• Home >> Search territories on the map >> Sicily

• Context indicators >> Employment (rates), Cities (microcrim.)

• Project list >> Filters: Infrastructures + Transportation + >100K€

• Project pages (#2) >> Metro Catania (SF) with payment series, Circumetnea (CIPE) (on the same work)

• «Tell us a project» & Disqus (further info by users)

• Province >> Municipality (multilocalized projects)

• Programming Authority >> Regional Admin. (also out of Region)

• Home >> Search projects >> Biotechnologies >> Project page >> ERDF NOP REC details

• Home >> Projects >> ERDF NOP REC >> Map + List

• 3 ways to explore data: project list and pages, simplified CSV files of own selection, full CSV open data for Italy or single regions

LIVE TUTORIAL

A LONG WAY TO GO

• From EU Funds to all resources for cohesion policy in Italy

• The monitoring system collects indicators on actual targets

of individual projects that will be published in future

releases and reinforced in 2014-20 cycle

• Few data on actual beneficiaries of projects and related

services

• A challenge for a national register of public and private

bodies involved in the projects, from programming to

delivery of services

• IFEL annual report on territorial dimension of EU cohesion

policy

• Bank of Italy economic regional reports

• Interactive visualisations (www.logeeka.com/opencoesione)

• Civic monitoring (www.opendatabari.it)

First re-users for analysis come from major research centres

All re-users have required some direct interaction with

OpenCoesione project team

FIRST EXAMPLES OF REUSE

• From open access to reuse of data

• Requirement for in-depth skills, higher data literacy and

mixed competencies

• A new model for open platforms: permanent beta version

in order to adapt to users needs and increase quality of data

and service provided

• Further development is needed in order to guarantee larger

interoperability of OpenCoesione data (linked-data formats,

API, widgets, etc.): is it worth?

CHALLENGES

Improving

the quality of information

available to national community

when making decisions

Promoting

citizens’ voice and getting

civic partners involved

in the decision making process

Better spending:

- efficient and effective usage

of resources;

- destination of funds consistent

with people’s needs

Better evaluations:

broad range of analyses

and evaluations based on public

data about projects

EXPECTED RESULTS AND IMPACT Fostering transparency and involvement of stakeholders

Managing Authority

Open Data portal

Citizen monitoring

Administrative

data

Open Data

+

Visualisation tools

Evidence on projects’

results

+

Suggestions and ideas

Environmental projects: the Taranto

case

ILVA production site

EU projects

Areas near the

ILVA plant

Combating organized crime through

the re-use confiscated assets

Local transportation in Bari and Sassari

FURTHER INFORMATION TO ADD E.g.: links between different projects on the same work

http://fesr.digitcampania.it/news/interventi-79yd/metropolitana-linea-1

Thank you for your attention

www.opencoesione.gov.it

opencoesione@dps.gov.it