Skopje, March 12th, 2019
The Ministry of Information Society and Administration Marks the global Open Government Partnership week with a public discussion covering the topic: “Where We Stand and Further Steps Within the Open Government Partnership“.
The Minister of Information Society and Administration, Damjan Manchevski, opened the event. As he noted, in the previous year the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia and MISA made a large leap forward in meeting commitments that are part of OGP.
“When we defined the new Action Plan a year ago, I stated that the Government and MISA make commitments to prepare a document with specific measures and activities. Measures that would contribute to enhancing cooperation of institutions with civil society organizations, businesses, media and, most importantly, citizens. A year later, I could gladly say that we attained that goal. The Government succeeded in bringing institutions closer to citizens, by means of the concept of transparency, openness and accountability. They are involved in processes of development of all government policies. That is the only way to produce policies, laws, strategies that suit citizens’ interests and needs”, stressed Minister Manchevski.
The fundamental precondition to attain success of Open Government Partnership is to restore citizens’ trust in institutions. The Government and MISA perform that by means of active transparency and opening data.
“Late last year, we opened the new open data portal. There are 190 data sets from over 40 institutions currently available. This exceeds figures anticipated under the Action Plan. The awareness in institutions on the importance of opening data is continuously increasing. There is an assigned open data officer in every institution. The business community, media, civil society organizations and, most importantly, citizens, increase their use of the available data, which actually was the underlying aim of publication thereof”, noted Minister Manchevski.
For the first time this year, North Macedonia hosts a High Representative of the OGP Support Unit in Washington D.C., i.e. the Deputy-Director Jo Powell. He reiterated to the cooperation with MISA and the success North Macedonia has attained following adoption of the new OGP Action Plan.
“In terms of your county, I can see commitments toward an open treasury, amendments to the Law on Prevention of Corruption with focus on citizens, opening a large number of data…This is a truly ambitious and interesting plan that aligns with your goal on EU accession. OGP is here to assist you in attainment of all these goals. In terms of challenges, one of them is to implement these plans. That is not something that could be attained in a year, it also demands bravery and political will. However, I believe and can witness that North Macedonia has major potential, which I believe to be the biggest in the region, in terms of opportunities for OGP functionality. This is a place, a platform wherein all of you could acquire ideas, tools and new innovative solutions. We are not here to tell you what to do – that is yours to decide. We could only offer and provide our support”, said Powell.
Ministry of Information Society and Administration