Open Data Readiness Assessment

Jamaica is the third country in the Caribbean to take part in an Open Data Readiness Assessment and the second to include an Open Budget Data Readiness Assessment, as part of the World Bank’s program of assistance to the Caribbean region, and with the partnership and support of the UK Department of International Development. The Ministers of the Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining have expressed strong support for an Open Data program in Jamaica, and the Prime Minister has stated her commitment to Open Government throughout her administration.

This assessment shows that Jamaica could achieve a successful Open Data program and makes recommendations on how that could be achieved.

Jamaica has much of the legislation in place that is desirable to underpin an Open Data program, and the implementation of the Access to Information Act a decade ago seems to be widely regarded as successful.

A lot of data is already available on government websites, so there is no issue of principle in making it public - the limitation is that it is not in reusable form and the barriers to converting it have already frustrated potential application-builders. Jamaica is home to the Caribbean’s most active and vibrant community of data activists and application developers, and so has the skills to readily exploit data as it is made available.

A significant number of datasets could be made available as Open Data quickly - often by publishing the underlying data that was used to generate the printed reports. This includes data important to Jamaica’s economy including tourism data, agricultural data, and energy data and to Jamaica’s society including education, health, crime and cultural data.

There are however a small number of wide points for the Government to consider:

  1. The Official Secrets Act is widely believed to cast a cultural cloud over moves to greater transparency. There needs to be a good communication and change management program to overcome this.
  2. The complexity of the structure of government in Jamaica, with a large number of agencies, means that the implementation program needs to be carefully managed, and that it is probably best done by bringing groups of Ministries and Agencies into Open Data in tranches.
  3. There are several relevant programs, for instance in developing policies on data sharing and on records and information management, which are moving relatively slowly. Making quick progress on Open Data will mean supporting those responsible for these other programs to make quick progress too.
  4. Some Ministries have time lags of five years or more in publishing their data. The report gives examples. Users of Open Data will want up to date data - and that is what is needed for the best decision-making within government as well. A determined program is needed to put data production back on a regular timescale across government, and that may involve some tough decisions on what to do with older information which has not yet been processed.

In short, the Assessment has shown that Jamaica has many of the key components for success in Open Data - not least the capability of its civil society to make good use of data to benefit Jamaica’s economy and society. However achieving success in Open Data will mean decisive action to resolve some related issues beyond the immediate focus of opening data itself.

Download the full report.