Creating digital society and transparent public administration

In total, 10 honours were presented, five of which were granted to civil society organizations whose projects in the field of open data were selected for funding with a total of 60,000 USD, as well as five awards given to state authorities that opened their data sets, published them on the National Open Data Portal and defined the challenges for proposing innovative ideas with the aim of improving their own work.

The projects of civil society organizations were awarded within the framework of “Open Data - Open Opportunities” Programme, funded by the World Bank, the UK‘s Good Governance Fund and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and implemented by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Office for Information Technologies and eGovernment.

In the past year, since the launch of the National Open Data Portal, numerous results have been achieved that are important for the process of opening data in Serbia, through the adoption of the Law on eGovernment which introduced open data into the legal framework, until the establishment of a wider community of those who publish and use open data .

“The National Open Data Portal now includes 28 institutions, which published 393 files, grouped into 116 sets of open data. Today, we selected the open data champions, 5 winning projects were selected in a competition for civil society organizations and higher education institutions, with 60,000 USD provided for their funding. Today, we also announced 3 open data challenges, funds of which amount to 30,000 USD, and which were formulated by 5 state institutions – Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, the Serbian Business Registers Agency, Medicines and Medical Devices Agency of Serbia, Institute of Public Health of Serbia “Dr Milan Jovanović Batut”, as well as the Republic Agency for Electronic Communications and Postal Services”, said the Director of the Office for IT and eGovernment, Mihailo Jovanovic (Associate Professor, PhD).

He added that the Government will continue to support the process of further opening of the data of public institutions.

“We are creating a modern, digital economy that will provide equal opportunities for all. Our goal is to move from an investment-oriented to an innovation-oriented economy, and the open data represent a prerequisite for social and economic development in the 21st century”, Jovanovic said.

“The process of opening data is very important for the openness and transparency of the Government, better communication with the citizens, as well as for involving citizens in the process of policy making and the improvement of public services. The economic benefit of opening data is also high. The estimated value of the open data industry is about 100 billion EUR and it employs over half a million people. In the United Kingdom, the GDP has risen by over 30 million EUR since the opening of just geospatial data”, said British Ambassador to Serbia, Denis Keefe.

He added that so far through the project of the Good Governance Fund, the reform processes in the Republic of Serbia have been supported with 16,5 million EUR.

Stephen Ndegwa, the World Bank Country Manager for Serbia, pointed out that the World Bank was involved in the process of opening data in the Republic of Serbia from the very beginning of the project.

“The World Bank welcomes the efforts of the Government of the Republic of Serbia in the process of opening the data of state institutions and the adoption of legal frameworks governing this field.”