Participants of a three – day workshop from 16th to 18th July had opportunity to find out how they can use open data sets from digital information booklets. Workshop was organized by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), supported by the Belgrade Open School (BOS) and the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability (CRTA), and it was organized within the project "Open Data - Open Opportunities", implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Bearing in mind that the utilization of open data in Serbia is on the rise, and that it is expected opening of a certain number of information booklets of local self-governments that took part in the training in abovementioned project in July, there is a need for strengthening civil society from these municipalities to use open data which will be available, for solving local problems and the impact on the decision - making process.
Without relevant data and its utilization, civil society cannot influence public policies, neither monitor the work of public administration, especially at the local level. The utilization of available data enables more efficient civil society response to local needs and problems, better participation of civil society in the decision-making process, and the integration of several different actors from the local community in order to improve the quality of life of all citizens.
Workshop was attended by representatives of civil society organizations from Novi Sad, Užice, Pancevo, Leskovac, Bečej, Vranje and Niš. Besides the representatives of the UNDP office, BOS and CRTA, the workshop was also hosted by Tin Geber, creative strategist, designer and technologist, as well as Ivan Branković, the author of the digital information booklets application and UNDP consultant for open data.
Project Coordinator at the Belgrade Open School, Sanja Nasevski, presented the results of the research on the availability and quality of information booklets of local self-governments (more about the results is available on the website www.dostup.no). The research was conducted within the project "Local transparency booster", in a period from March to May 2016. Based on this research, in partnership with CRTA, BOS proposed measure for reforming of information booklets in the framework of the Action Plan for implementation of the Open Government Partnership Initiative for 2016 and 2017, in Serbia.
All participants will continue to cooperate within the project and will be invited to submit project ideas for the use of open data from information booklets of their local self-governments, with the mentoring support of BOS and CRTA.
