Enhancing good governance and economic freedom of the Arab countries in the digital era Prof. Andrzej Kondratowicz SWPS University and American Studies Center, University of Warsaw, Poland Economic Freedom of the Arab World Conference, Amman, November 18-19, 2014

1. Enhancing good governance and
economic freedom of the Arab countries
in the digital era
Prof. Andrzej Kondratowicz
SWPS University and American Studies Center, University of Warsaw, Poland
prepared for 9th Economic Freedom of the Arab World Conference
Landmark Amman Hotel, Amman, Jordan, November 18-19, 2014
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2. Intro
I will not talk about some far-fetched theory
but about some practicalities
i.e. things that Arab (and other) societies can do
to improve their EF (Economic Freedom)
and GG (Good Governance)
As we will see, from among the AW (Arab World),
Jordan and Tunisia (also neighboring Turkey) have already
embarked on the process of implementing the
practicalities I want to talk about. But WHAT ARE THEY?
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3. The purpose
• My comments will be devoted to some issues connected
with information flows in the modern society (which I
refer to as ‘digitization’) that are vital to EF & GG of the
polity.
• The major theme will be: what characteristics should
information (and the “documents” that are “information
carriers”) have, in order to fulfill the promise of higher
EF, efficient government, as well as the open and
democratic society.
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4. An important digression
• One of the aspects of EF that the EFN has not explored very
deeply so far, seems to be information access and, more
generally, information flows in the society.
• There is a large quantitative and qualitative information
assymetry between the government and the private
producers/consumers (or the gov’t and society)
• Better info flows (gov’tsociety and societygov’t) could
reduce this assymetry and contribute to higher EF (as
measured by the EFI) in a number of ways that I will not
enumerate here for the lack of time)
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5. Full agenda vs. limited agenda
1. What is digitizing / digitization? Narrow & broad definitions
2. Good Govenance [GG] and its aspects
3. How digitization influences GG
4. Digitization as a tool for interaction between the Gov’t and
society
5. Good practices of the open government: digitization quality
6. Civil society and participation in the digital era
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6. Full agenda vs. limited agenda
1. What is digitizing / digitization? Narrow & broad definitions
2. Good Govenance [GG] and its aspects
3. How digitization influences GG
4. Digitization as a tool for interaction between the Gov’t and
society
5. Good practices of the open government: digitization quality
6. Civil society and participation in the digital era
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7. Open Government Data Definition: The 8
Principles of Open Government Data
• Government data shall be considered open if the data
are made public in a way that complies with the
principles below (see next slide)
• Compliance with the principles must be reviewable.
– A contact person must be designated to respond to people
trying to use the data.
– A contact person must be designated to respond to
complaints about violations of the principles.
– An administrative or judicial court must have the jurisdiction
to review whether the agency has applied these principles
appropriately.
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8. The 8 Principles of Open Government Data
• 1. Data Must Be Complete
• 2. Data Must Be Primary
• 3. Data Must Be Timely
• 4. Data Must Be Accessible
• 5. Data Must Be Machine-processable
• 6. Access Must Be Non-Discriminatory
• 7. Data Formats Must Be Non-Proprietary
• 8. Data Must Be License-free
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9. Principles 1 - 2 of Open Government Data
• 1. Data Must Be Complete
- All public data are made available.
- Data are electronically stored information or recordings,
including but not limited to documents, databases,
transcripts, and audio/visual recordings.
- Public data are data that are not subject to valid privacy,
security or privilege limitations, as governed by other
statutes.
• 2. Data Must Be Primary
Data are published as collected at the source, with the finest
possible level of granularity, not in aggregate or modified forms.
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10. Principles 3 - 5 of Open Government Data
• 3. Data Must Be Timely
Data are made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the
value of the data.
• 4. Data Must Be Accessible
Data are available to the widest range of users for the widest
range of purposes.
• 5. Data Must Be Machine processable
Data are reasonably structured to allow automated processing
of it. 10

11. Principles 6 - 8 of Open Government Data
• 6. Access Must Be Non-Discriminatory
Data are available to anyone, with no requirement of
registration.
• 7. Data Formats Must Be Non-Proprietary
Data are available in a format over which no entity has
exclusive control.
• 8. Data Must Be License-free
- Data are not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark
or trade secret regulation.
- Reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions may
be allowed as governed by other statutes. 11

12. Jim Harper (2011) condesed those 8 principles into 4:
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1. authoritative sourcing
2. availability
3. machine-discoverability
4. machine–readability

13. A SIMPLE CONCLUSION
The above requirements vis-à-vis
digital documents and their flows seem quite
simple, reasonable and obvious -
- yet, they are far from being implemented.
 We, the peoples, have to fight for their
implementation not only as a matter of
principles, but because they can grossly
improve EF, GG, and our well-being.
Kondratowicz 13

14. Open Government Partnership Participating Countries
OGP was launched in 2011 to provide an international platform for domestic
reformers committed to making their governments more open, accountable,
and responsive to citizens. OGP has grown from 8 countries
to the 65 participating countries
Kondratowicz 14

15. the END
kondratowicz@swps.edu.pl . 15