Dr. Ali Al Khouri :
Data divide, unlike digital divide, is a term that is yet to gain wide currency, at least as of now. It is likely that the societies around the world will soon begin to be classified into those that access and use data which are germane to their welfare and those that do not. Data haves and data have-nots may sound like a rather precocious coinage at this point in time, but the progress in the current discourse on open data indicates that it is not too far-fetched.
The introduction of the idea of open data, which is largely coterminous with the advent of the World Wide Web, marked a paradigm shift in the discourse on transparency as a precondition for empowerment.
The extension of the idea into the sphere of governance gave it added relevance and a sense of urgency. It basically postulated that governments placing more data for public consumption will result in better economic performance and citizens’ welfare. Proponents of open data in government argued that enhanced data transparency would lead to more dynamic public participation and collaboration in the delivery and creation of innovative, value-added services and improve the decision-making capabilities of both the governments and citizens. So what is open data? Open data refers to all types of data that must be freely available to everyone for use, re-use and distribution, unshackled by the various restrictive mechanisms of data control, such as copyrights and patents. In that sense, the open data movement advocates goals and principles similar to those of other ‘open’ movements, such as open source, open hardware, open content and open access movements. All these ‘open’ movements sought to privilege the greater common good over motives of private profit.
The idea of open government data has now become so central to all models of citizen-centric governance that no government can ignore it if it cared for the welfare of its citizens.
We need to note that the advantages of access to data are not limited to the obviously significant potential of making government-provided services to the citizens better and quicker as well as facilitating more effective decision-making processes. It also offers unparalleled economic advantages.
A study by the McKinsey Global Institute in October 2013 reported that open data has the potential to unlock between $3.2 trillion and $5.4 trillion in additional economic value annually across a variety of industries in the US alone. The European Commission predicted that the economic gains of opening up public sector data would amount to 40 billion Euros annually in the European Union and total direct and indirect economic gains would be in the order of 140 billion Euros annually!. Against the backdrop of what has been said above, let us now look at the experience of the UAE in open data dissemination. It goes without saying that the UAE is among the top-ranking countries in terms of investments in progressive information and communication technologies.
It ranked 11th in the e-participation index assessment conducted by the World Bank last year. This index measured the scale, quality, relevance and usefulness of government websites providing online information and participatory tools and services to their citizens. (Unlike most countries, these tools and services provided by the UAE are also equally applicable to the residents of the country).
In the UAE, the government has been following a citizen-centric model of decision-making that places a premium on providing a better quality of life for all the citizens and residents of the country. The six-layer decision-making model of the UAE as per the country’s vision 2021 comprises national values, smart governance, government services, service delivery and quality of life with the citizen as the pivot around which it all revolves. The key drivers for the open data initiative in the UAE Government are the following:
1. Improve national decision support system by enabling access to large sets of data.
2. Improve the transparency in government operations to enable higher efficiencies in service delivery.
3. Improve the communicability of information and enable seamless flow of data.
Enabling access to large sets of data is meant to facilitate the processing of as much useful information from them as possible. The fact that these data are placed as aggregated open data on e-government portals ensures accessibility, with the additional benefits of catalogues and indices helping decision-makers to use intelligent machine-readable systems to qualify and assess the data thus made available. This will then contribute to all three types of decision-making at the levels of the government, the businesses and the individuals: operational, tactical and strategic.
Availability of and accessibility to authentic information, especially those made available from government sources, would help organisations and individuals to make correct decisions, which in turn would result in citizens’ welfare, economic growth and good governance.
(Dr. Ali Mohamed Al-Khouri is Director-General of the Emirates Identity Authority.)
