Data services and integrity in digital Kosovo
Author: Shqipe Gjocaj
e-Kosova platform, although founded years ago, became operational at the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Agency for Information Society (AIS) officials estimate that despite the problems citizens may have encountered while using the platform concerned, the possibility of online registration for vaccination, avoiding waiting in queues to make an appointment and to be invited for vaccination later, has greatly facilitated not only the work of health workers but also the experience of citizens with vaccination in a period of the public health crisis.
“With over 1 million and 500 vaccines administered, this platform helped in scheduling appointments and providing electronic passports”, said Burim Balaj, manager of the e-Kosova platform.
The platform concerned has more than 6000 registered users and received about 100 million visits within a period of 6–7 months.
E-Kosova is not the only effort towards digitalization of services and open government. E-procurement, as an initial step of transparency, changed the whole community approach to procurement procedures in the country. Civil society organizations in the area of open data, consider e-procurement as a very important achievement in the area of fiscal transparency. “What started with the public procurement has spread and been replicated in other areas of government transparency”, said Blerta Thaqi, Executive Director of Open Data Kosovo (ODK).
Various stakeholders and professionals in the area of open government and data digitalization agree that important steps have been taken in recent years in terms of data digitalization and civic participation. This is observed by the transparent approach of the work of Kosovo Assembly, efforts at the municipal level, in increasing the AIS capacities, including e-Kosova platform as the main platform for the digital identity of all citizens of the Republic of Kosovo, where they can have centralized access to all electronic services provided by government institutions.
Civil society in the country, in addition to its educational and advocacy role, has a pro-active role in the area of open government. According to Fidan Kalaja, Head of Kosovo’s membership process in the Open Government Partnership (OGP), at the same time National Coordinator for drafting the new OGP Action Plan, the civil society is not only part of drafting the new Action Plan, but also plays a crucial role because it is also a majority.
This pro-active role is manifested by concrete contribution. Open Data Kosovo has proposed an additional solution under the category of health services in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and with support from the Embassy of the Netherlands in Kosovo.
“The service concerned is about the digitalization and verification of the general vaccination card, which arose as a need and inspiration from the success of the COVID-19 vaccine identification process”, said Blerta Thaci, Executive Director of ODK.
According to her, through this additional module, every child from birth to adulthood will have the opportunity to record the history of receiving general vaccines. “The same module will also provide additional verification through QR code in e-Kosova so that the user has it available whenever necessary for documentation, such as proof of vaccination, for example when parents enrol their children in kindergarten or school. “This module within e-Kosova will be launched soon”, Thaci said.
However, despite significant achievements towards open governance and digitalization of services, Kosovo still faces significant problems. Lack of data in essential sectors continues to be a central problem in the efforts towards open governance and proper digitalization of data in the country. Kalaja is also aware of this and considers that open data, for example in the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture, would aid the private sector to analyze potential investments.
“For the time being, we have a lack of open data to serve businesses to make analyzes for various investments. “Therefore, it is crucial to have a pro-active approach to data disclosure, data that will be easily accessible to citizens and economic operators”, he said.
Institute for Development Policy INDEP, a think tank promoting active citizenship and participation in governance, considers energy as one of the key areas where open data are necessary for the development and prosperity of the country.
“In the area of energy, there is a lack of data on the energy performance of buildings. Data on this aspect would enable calculations of energy efficiency and calculations on the level of energy saving, as well as investments to be made in the future in general. Furthermore, there are no data and studies on the capacity of renewable sources, in addition to accessible data on real-time energy transmission infrastructure”, said Dora Musa from this institute.
Another important issue is the lack of routinely collected data. For example, sports data were published once in 2013 and no data has been published ever since. This makes people in general and sports professionals in particular not well informed of what is done in the area of sports in Kosovo. Moreover, the lack of updated data makes it difficult to properly design sports policies.
In addition to the challenges of having enough data and routine collection, data quality is highly questionable. Dita Dobranja, an economist, connoisseur and enthusiast of open data, highlights the discrepancy in data provided by the country’s institutions.
“For example, if I need data in the area of education, I request it from the Ministry of Education and the directorates of education in the respective municipalities. Then, the Kosovo Agency of Statistics (KAS) publishes such data on a sort of database with a rather different structure from those presented for example by the Ministry of Education in the statistical journal. In this way, some percentages change and you do not know which data to use or report. This is where the freedom of the researcher is interrupted”, Dobranja said.
Moreover, Dobranja points out that the general lack of data has led us to have a tendency whether to trust completely this insufficient data available and take it for granted. She emphasizes that it is extremely important to increase the critical thinking among women and men, be they citizens, scholars, researchers, etc., about the data they consume. Consequently, Dobranja encourages data users not only to seek and talk about more data but also about their integrity.
* This article has been published by Open Data Kosovo as part of the “Initiative for Open & Good Governance” project funded by the MATRA 2020 program as part of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Kosovo. The article is the sole responsibility of Open Data Kosovo and does not reflect the opinions of the Embassy of the Netherlands.
