Questions/Answers

The National Open Data Program is a governmental initiative launched in 2016 within the 6th orientation of the strategy of e-Government and Open Government "SmartGov 2020". The implementation of this initiative is devoted by a specific action plan "Open data national action plan" in 2017. To reinforce the implementation of this initiative has been integrated as a main axis within the different OGP action plans. The main goals of this National Open Data Program are to: - Improve the citizens empowerment and activate their participation in public affairs; - Enrich the analyzes and researches specially in the academic field; - Improve the quality of public services and create new services in compliance with citizens needs; - Develop new innovative services by the private sector (startups, developers,...); - Improve strategic decision-making. The beneficiaries of this initiative are various, including citizens, private sector, academia, media and civil society organizations (CSOs). To further improve the positive impact of this program several measures are planned: among these measures it could be mentioned the open data decree which aims to sustain and Institutionalize the open data publication process by public authorities, and to establish an ecosystem in favor of the innovation and economic development. This decree will provide the governance model for the national open data program, and will define associated technical standards. In addition to other projects currently in progress such as the public data inventory project, stimulation of open data reuse through the use cases development . The scope of this program is aligned with several SDG goals in particular with the 16th goal.

Through the national open data program aims to push different public agencies to publish the public data in open format in order to: -Enhance the access to information right and to give the different stakeholders especially citizen the mechanisms to follow and asses the public policies and the governmental actions, -Establish an engaged and inclusive society which could participate and contribute in the public decision-making process, -Reinforce mechanisms to ameliorate the national resources governance, -Establish an elastic ecosystem that stimulate innovation, scientific research, economic and social development.

The national open data program could contribute in the implementation of several SDGs: 6th and 15th Goals: ameliorate water management through public data release by dedicated open data platform "Agridata", aiming to ensure equitable access to safe and affordable water for all, improve water quality and participation of different stakeholders especially local communities to enhance water, sanitation, forests and green spaces management. 8th and 9th Goals: open data release contributes to create an affordable ecosystem to stimulate innovation and development of new services and mobile application based on open data reuse. 10th Goal: Free and equal access to public data contribute to ensure inclusive society. 11th Goal: Provide access to safe, affordable and equal services for all in several sectors especially in transport and culture through open data platforms. 12th Goal: Reinforce the natural resources governance by establishing an open data platform for industry, petroleum and mining sector, in addition to the review of the code of hydrocarbons to include the open contracting concept. 16th Goal: Consecration of a constitutional right (access to information right, article 32 of the constitution). 17th Goal: Collaboration with civil society allowed to implement various achievements such as the development of 2 OD platforms.

The national open data program contributes to create an integrated ecosystem in order to ensure the sustainability of its impact in several level. At social level: Involve citizen in the public policies process, inclusive society. At economic: Stimulate innovation by promote developers and startups to invent and create innovative and high added value services and mobile applications that improve the quality of public services by public data reuse. Besides public data release contributes to attract investors thanks to transparency and accountability of Government. At environmental: Reduce pollution, hydrocarbons consumption and rationalize natural resources management.

The revolution of 2011, allowed to establish new model of governance especially in the field of openness, the national open data program contributes to : -Enhance the visibility of governmental actions and activities through the publication of data related to the public policies data, -Establish a new administrative paradigm by develop the opening culture within public agencies, for instance many ministries developed their open data platform (ministry of interior, ministry of cultural affairs, ministry of industry, ministry of agriculture, ministry of transport, municipalities), those platforms allow to establish new ecosystem of public data management -Improve the quality of public data produced and shared by government agencies which allows to stimulate innovation and creativity by implement new online services and mobile applications, -set up a legal and regulatory framework promoting the openness of administration especially by promulgation of law decree of 2011, the consecration of the principles of openness within the constitution of 2014, the promulgation of organic law 22-2016 on access to information right and the project of open data decree that organizes the governance of the national open data program and identifies the technical, legal and organizational aspects.

The national open data program is addressed to all stakeholders at the national and local levels. Indeed, access to public data is available for all users without gender restriction, the different activities takes into account of representativity between gender.

The national open data program is designed for several targets and stakeholders: - Citizens are considered as the main target, given that applications and services developed based on open data are oriented to address the needs of the public. Also, citizens could have an overview about public policies and government actions. - Public agencies: the dissemination of government information in an open and standardized format will allow public structures to effectively manage the cycle of public data production. It will improve data quality and facilitate the access to it. - Startups, IT companies, academic research: the publication of datasets can be a locomotive for to growth economic value by developing an added value services from private sector. Also, it can be an input to develop academic research and innovation in the academic sector.

The success of the implementation of national open data program in Tunisia is due to the adoption of a practical approach of "learning by doing". Indeed, the first step was the coverage of the technical aspects of open data, the Tunisian government established in the beginning the first national open data (OD) portal characterized as "beta" version in 2012 which improved an dedicated federative platform for the release of public data developed in co-creation between public agencies, private sector and CSOs. Afterwards, Government reflections were focused on covering the technical, legal, institutional and organizational aspects related to the open data field. In this context, the national open data program has been launched to enhance the Open Data ecosystem. As a part of this program, an associated national action plan for the period 2017-2019 has been drafted through a participatory approach with all stakeholders involved in this area. This action plan includes several projects classified by short-term, middle term and long term to facilitate the assessment and the monitoring of its implementation, ensured by he e-government unit. Currently, the government reached several achievements such as : -Establishing of sectorial OD portals, - Executing a capacity building program on open data for the benefit of the public officials (5 pilot sectors) -Implementing a first phase of public data inventory project for 6 sectors in 2017-2018, and launch the second phase of the this project with others sectors, - Drafting a legal framework of OD, y a participatory approach, submitted for public consultation, and will be approved by a ministry council. In addition, the involvement of the civil society in this program contributed to the success of its implementation. As a result, the publication of data sets in the national portal takes into account the users' demand (CSOs and citizens).

- Need to raise public awareness on the existing data to promote a larger involvement of the public, a lack of knowledge about the OD concepts and standards. To resolve this issue, several workshops and informational sessions have been organized to build capacity and to promote the use of public datasets. - Lack of financial and human resources dedicated to manage this project, given the absence of a budget allocation in the State budget to ensure this component. Currently, the international cooperation is being used to release some activities (training, awareness-raising workshops, drafting a communication plan on OpenGov and OD).

The development of the national open data program contributed to the establishment of a whole Open Data ecosystem in Tunisia. Indeed, all open data platforms allow developers through APIs to automatically use published datasets to develop applications and services. It also offers the possibility of highlighting the reuse cases created based on these open data. Moreover, this platform emphasizes the principle of "open by default" and the free access to public data, which open new possibilities for civil society and small businesses to engage in new projects.

The national open data program is an initiative included in the open government partnership program, the Tunisian Government through the OGP action plans promulgate many commitments relevant of the national open data program, the development of those commitments was in some phases inspired by successful initiative from other OGP members countries.

No

The national open data program is based in openness and scalability. Tunisia government work jointly with CSOs and private sector to develop open data portals, online service and mobile applications using international standards and open source solutions that make those portals and solutions transferable. Also Tunisia, in 2018, organized an event for African countries around Open government partnership and in particular Open data program the main target was sharing experience with different African countries. Other sharing framework are in progress to establishment in the context of open data program to transfer knowledge and lesson learn.

The national open data program is a program include the national strategy of e-government and open government in Tunisia and in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd action plan of OGP, the e-government unit under the Ministry of Civil Service, Administrative Modernization and Public Policies is responsible of this program, every sector has a focal point of open data program who manages the open data program in the sector level, for financial fields some action was financed by Tunisian government budget, others from the World bank, AFDB, OECD, and others donors, some initiatives have been also developed by CSOs.

The initiative sustainable over time, in financial and institutional terms: Tunisia established a governance framework to ensure the sustainability and the program coordination between all stakeholders, accompanied with a legal framework (constitution of 2014, organic law 22-2016, open data decree draft). Concerning financial aspects, the program is financed by a State Budget, donors, and CSOs. Given the important impact of public data release to enhance transparency, accountability, economic development and social impacts in addition to the involvement and participation of all stakeholders, this program is assessed as sustainable over time.

Yes

-A preliminary assessment has been taken within the OD action plan which could identify the highlight axes. -OGP action plans through the IRM reporting (External assessment by OGP support Unit) and the self-assessment reports (internal by the steering committee) allows to monitor and evaluate the progress of OD commitments included in each OGP action plan. -OD barometer developed by the WWW foundation. -Audit Report of Tunisian open data portals developed by the e-Government Unit at the Ministry of Civil Service, Administrative Modernization and Public Policies.

-The OD action plan which includes PKIs to measure the implementation on short-terms, middle-terms and long-terms. -The OGP action plans allow to follow-up the execution of OD commitments by indicators : milestones, progress rate. -Audit Report of Tunisian open data portals based on a evaluation grid with more than 30 indicators classified into 4 categories: general specification of the portal, access and availability, communication and participation, general specification of datasets. -OD barometer: an international tool developed by the WWW foundation. For each edition, the Tunisian Government sent its own assessment based on the barometer methodology.

Concrete results, outcomes & impacts include: - Existence of a federative National OD portal actually it includes around 1400 datasets by 37 public providers (ministers), - Development of 7 sectoral Open Data portals, - Organization of Hackathons aiming to use public datasets (Onshor Hack, Mapathon Hackthon, Hack-for-transparency…) - Organizing training sessions - Adoption of the Open public Data Decree, - Complete the implementation of the public data inventory project. The exploitation of these findings of the evaluation as follows: - The evolution of resources mobilization stills insufficient, given the technical team in charge of the open data program management in each structure is small compared to the challenges faced also the financial resources are limited. For that, the government uses the partnership with CSOs and donors to ensure the sustainability of the initiative. The assessment allows the government to prioritize the high important projects, classify public data publication with prioritization, resolve several technical and functional issues related to the whole open data platforms.

The national open data program covers the national, sectorial and local levels: The constitution of the Tunisian Republic of 2014 and the organic law 22-2016 on access to information right define the principal aspects of openness and the perimeter of the open data program implementation (public data by default and information must be publish proactively, the public structures governed by this legal framework, …). To manage this program, the government established an effective management model by a stakeholder analysis and mapping through the promulgation of an Open data decree organizing the open data program namely the identification of stakeholders and their contribution in the national, sectorial and local levels; the governance model to manage this program (national steering committee, technical committee, network of focal points in different levels), harmonization of tools and standards used to implement the open data program between different involved structures. Currently at the operational level, the program is managed by the e-government unit in coordination with the focal points network, several capacity building programs have been established to improve skills of public officials in this area and to accelerate the execution of this program.

In the framework of partnership between Government, civil society private sector and donors, various activities have been achieved, such as the organization of several workshops and training sessions on the concept of open data, building technical capacities, in addition to promoting the national OD program drafted through a participatory approach with all stakeholders involved. Moreover, various open data portals have been developed in partnership with CSOs such as sectorial OD portals (agriculture, municipality, culture, transport, industry) which are harvested to the national portal. Also, several Hackathons have been organized by CSOs and public institutions based on public data sets published. This participatory approach is adopted within the whole open data program, for example the open data decree is drafted with the participation of CSOs, private sector, academic researchers and donors, it has been submitted to public consultation through the national portal of public consultation. In tandem, it has been sent to the ministries for consultation. After that it will promulgated by a ministerial council and be publish in the official gazette.

The success of the implementation of national open data program in Tunisia is due to the adoption of a practical approach of "learning by doing". The program started in 2012 to implement the decree law 41-2011 on the administrative documents release, with a simple web site centralized at the e-government which ensures its management that showed several issues namely collection, publication update and management of datasets. The insufficient of this approach with a promulgation of the new organic law larger guided us to make new reflections based on participation and decentralized approach with a federative OD portal and an action plan characterized as a national road map with predefined schedules and a prioritized projects that covered different aspects (organization , legal, technical, functional,..) to accelerate implementation of this initiative and to establish an elastic OD ecosystem. The main keys of success are: the involvement of all national stakeholders; the continuous efforts deployed to enhance the quality of publish data; extend the perimeter of data should be published in accordance with the international trends; attract youth, academic research and private sector and create a dynamic around the public data reuse to stimulate innovation and create added value services.