The topic of transparency and opening of data of public interest within the framework of the international initiative Partnership for Open Government, at 13th and 14th October 2022, brought together representatives of the countries of Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans in Rome. The two-day dialogue on the opening of public administration institutions to citizens was organized by the Regional School for Public Administration – ReSPA and the European unit of the Partnership for Open Government, and as a side event of the regular regional meeting of the Partnership for Open Government of the Europe.
The sessions within the dialogue of the countries of the Western Balkans were an opportunity to present the ongoing activities and initiatives, as well as the current state and challenges in the implementation of measures related to the opening of the data of the action plans of the Partnership for Open Government by individual countries. The activities presented are also a direct link to the goals, to the measures and activities of the national action plans for public administration reform, as well as to the Strategic Framework for Public Administration Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina 2018-2022.
Project activities within the framework of the Responsibility reform area and with the support of the GIZ Program for Strengthening Public Institutions in BiH, were previously coordinated by PARCO at the state and federal level in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and are related to the preparation of an assessment of the public administration’s readiness to publish data in an open format (Open Data Readiness Assessment – ODRA), and they represent a link and one of the positive examples of steps that governments should take when launching open data initiatives.
The improvement of transparency and the level of openness of data has been recognized in the public administration reform efforts throughout the countries of the Western Balkans and is an important segment of their public administration reform action plans, which gave this two-day dialogue additional value. The presentation of good practices in the steps that follow after the conducted analyzes in the field of data opening contributed to the establishment of partnerships and useful contacts for planning future activities in the field of transparency and data opening in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In addition to the representative of PARCO, representatives of the Ministry of Justice of Bosnia and Herzegovina participated in the discussion on behalf of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as representative of Transparency International BiH, who presented the results of monitoring the transparency of the public procurement process in Bosnia and Herzegovina.