The Open Data Quality Index in Ukraine currently scores only 42%, an indicator that reflects the principles of open data guaranteed by law: openness by default, efficiency and clarity, accessibility and use, and comparability. Data from state registers, which are supposed to be public by law, still remain semi-open. The Verkhovna Rada, the State Judicial Administration, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Internal Affairs are the most conscientious in publishing data. The anti-rating is led by the Tax Service, the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Health.
Opendatabot analyzed how the quality of government data has changed in recent years.
We monitor data openness on the Open Data Quality Index in Ukraine page.
Less than half of open data in Ukraine meets international requirements. The Open Data Quality Index currently stands at 42.37%. For comparison, in the second half of 2023, the Index was 37.11%.
The invasion of Russia in one day threw Ukraine back 6 years in terms of transparency and accessibility of public information. In the early days, the state closed registers to protect information from the enemy.
After a break, some government agencies – data managers – began publishing sets of data, just as they did before the great war. Despite this, the Open Data Index in Ukraine has not yet reached the levels before the full-scale invasion. As a reminder, at the beginning of 2022, the Index stood at 57.6%.
Graph of the Open Data Quality Index
The improvement of data quality and the growth of the Index score were influenced by the publication of the following government data:
Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine – information on MPs, their activity and property status;
SJA – the Unified State Register of Court Decisions;
The Ministry of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine – Register of Construction Activities;
State Property Fund – Register of corporate rights of the state in the authorized capital of business entities
Commission for Regulation of Gambling and Lotteries – Register of Gambling Business
At the same time, some datasets stopped being updated and were closed altogether:
SJA: details for paying court fees
Pension Fund of Ukraine: data on taxpayers with arrears of payments to the Pension Fund
Ukrpatent: State Register of Intellectual Property Representatives (patent attorneys)
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the SJA, the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs remain the leaders in terms of data quality.
However, the most closed agencies remain, despite the requirements of Resolution 835 of the Cabinet of Ministers:
State Tax Service
Ministry of Health
Ministry of Economy.
“Two years after the start of the full-scale war, the state has not yet created transparent and clear rules for open data. The closure of information as a temporary measure that is supposed to protect information from the enemy is actually creating opportunities for fraud and preventing the country’s economy from developing.
Over the year, we have made progress in the fight for open data – for example, the publication of the Register of Corrupt Officials and officials’ declarations was resumed with a significant public outcry. However, among the most important registers for business, tax debts, VAT and single tax remain closed,” comments Oleksiy Ivankin, Head of the Open Data Hub.
Ukraine should enter the TOP-3 countries in the field of open data in three years, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov during the opening of the Open Data Forum in Kyiv on Friday.
“My goal is to make everything for Ukraine to enter the TOP-3 countries in the field of open data in the world in three years since we have support from the president, the prime minister and all ministers,” he said.
Fedorov also said that the team of the Ministry of Digital Transformation has already been formed. The deputies will be introduced on September 27, and officially they will take office on October 1.
“Until October 1, we have the task to officially install our deputies in the office. I will have a very strong team of deputies. Then, based on the functions and our goals, we will communicate with you and implement projects in the coordinate system,” said the deputy prime minister.
Ukraine ranked 17th in the open data development ranking according to the Open Data Barometer study, reads the annual report Open Data Barometer from the World Web Foundation. The calculation methodology has changed this year, therefore there are no places in the rating as in the previous years, but the scores calculated allowed us to assess progress in recent years, the report says. In addition to points, the data on the difference between the points of assessment in the current and the first of the ratings were also used to create the evaluation list.
Ukraine is on the second place among the countries that made the greatest progress in the last four years. The authors of the study attributed Ukraine to the group of countries that still claim leadership, but are confidently working towards the discovery of data, the study states.
Ukraine shared the result of 47 points with Argentina. Ukraine is followed by the Philippines (42 points), Chile (40 points), and Indonesia (37 points).
The leaders of the rating were Canada and Britain (76 points each), Australia (75 points), Korea and France (72 points each).
The rating is closed by Saudi Arabia (25 points), and Sierra Leone (22 points).
Open data in 2017 brought more than $700 million, or 0.67% of GDP, into the economy of Ukraine, according to a study conducted by the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) in partnership with the London-based Open Data Institute. “If Ukraine continues to work with open data, in particular publish datasets from government decree No. 835, then economic benefits from open data until 2025 will be up to $1.4 billion, or 0.92% of GDP,” said KSE member Artur Kovalchuk, who is one of the authors of the study.
The study finds that today about 3,000-4,000 people directly work with open data, and its further development will translate into the need for personnel with experience in collecting, analyzing, using data.
In addition, Project Manager of the USAID/ UK aid-funded Transparency and Accountability in Public Administration and Services program /TAPAS Petro Matiaszek says that according to the research, the potential of open data in Ukraine is fully comparable with that of the EU. Thus, a recent study by Capgemini for the European Commission estimates direct effects from opening authorities’ data in the EU countries by 2020 vary within 0.37-1.58% of GDP (EUR 55.3 billion).
The study “Economic Potential of Open Data for Ukraine” was conducted with the support of the State Agency for E-Governance and is the first attempt to assess the direct economic effect of opening government data and the potential created by such data for the national economy.
The findings of the research, methodology and other data are available at tapas.org.ua.
