Il 23 marzo 2021 si è tenuto un incontro tra i referenti dell’iniziativa OpenCoesione presso il Nucleo di valutazione e analisi per la programmazione del Dipartimento per le politiche di coesione della Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri e il Dipartimento per la programmazione, il monitoraggio e la valutazione del governo Sudafricano, nell’ambito dell’iniziativa Open Government Partnership. La sessione di lavoro - uno scambio di buone prassi - ha visto la partecipazione anche di altri dipartimenti del governo sudafricano, dell’Ambasciata italiana a Pretoria e della Banca Mondiale.

1. The Italian open government strategy on cohesion policy
23 March 2021
Open Government Partnership South Africa
Simona De Luca
Evaluation Unit
Department for Cohesion Policy
Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Italy

2. Summary
• Cohesion policy overview
• OpenCoesione: concept and framework
• National Monitoring System
• OpenCoesione: the website
• Reuse and participation:
○ At the School of OpenCohesion
○ Monithon

3. Cohesion policy overview

4. Cohesion policy aims at reducing disparities
In Italy and in Europe
All over Italy (although mostly in the
South) in many different policy
sectors in order to reduce
disparities, attract business and
enhance opportunities and the
quality of services
More developed regions
Transition regions
Less developed regions

5. Cohesion policy: 14 years of investments
Gross planned resources in Italy across programming
periods (EU and national budget)
• 2007-2013: 89 bill €
• 2014-2020: 140 bill € including agriculture and poverty
• 2021-2027: to be defined (negotiation at EU level)

6. OpenCoesione: concept and framework

7. An open government strategy on cohesion policy
Since 2012 in Italy

8. A more efficient, effective and transparent use of resources and
destination of funds consistent with people’s needs
Improve decision making and policy design at different governative
levels, also by increasing access to and quality of information
Increasing involvement of stakeholders and civic partners in knowing
how the public money is spent and pushing for results
Broadening the opportunities for analyses and evaluations on relevant
policy issues
OpenCoesione: main goals and benefits
of a project based on open data

9. Adaptation of
Open government diagram
by Armel Le Coz and Cyril Lage
released under Creative Commons
Attribution terms

10. Political insight on benefits of transparency: not a challenge but an
opportunity
A national unitary monitoring system (available since 2007)
A strong drive towards publication of open data... although OpenCoesione
is not just following the trend, but also a major communication operation
based on transparency that calls for participation by citizens and aims at
increasing the effectiveness of the policy.
OpenCoesione: enabling factors

11. National Monitoring System

12. National
unitary
monitoring
system
Ministry
Interior
Ministry
Education
University
and
Research
…
Veneto
Regional
Admin
Calabria
Regional
Admin
Marche
Regional
Admin
Ministry
Dev.t
• Co-ordinated by State General
Accounting Department
• Federate architecture:
a system of systems
• Based on
data exchange protocol
shared by all local systems
• A de-facto standard for data
on public investments in Italy
National unitary monitoring system on cohesion
policy

13. • Common set of information transferred unambiguously to a
unitary national system, available since 2007
• Common classifications adopted at the national level (Unique
Project Code / Codice Unico Progetto - CUP)
• Data can be transferred at any time, with bimonthly
consolidation
• Documentation for a common language and higher quality/
coherence: glossary, application protocol, quality controls on
data document, monitoring vademecum
• More than 200 variables associated to each project
• Validation controls of coherence that may determine project
rejection or warnings
Monitoring system: facts and figures

14. Monitoring System and OpenCoesione:
information structure
Cohesion Policy National Monitoring System
OpenCoesione (.csv file - opendata)
Var1 ………………………………
Var M
Var1 ………………………………
Var K
Information belonging to the CUP database
Code + Classification

15. OpenCoesione: the website

16. Open data licence
Information about projects undertaken
for implementing regional policies:
• description
• funding (amount and sources)
• locations
• thematic areas
• public/private subjects involved
• deployment timing
200+ variables for each project in
open data section (CSV)
+ access via API
The web portal: www.opencoesione.gov.it
Data updated every two months
31 dec 2020: more than 1,6 million of projects for
approx 186 billion of euros of public funds

17. Dynamic section based on
monitoring data that
allows territorial,
thematic and typological
browsing of projects and
bodies
Editorial content and news
on the portal
Statistical data from
external source (National
Institute of Statistics)
At the School of OpenCohesion (ASOC):
reuse/citizens engagement initiative related
to OpenCoesione
Menus dedicated to programs
planning (resources, tools and
programs)
Menus related to data reuse
experiences and
participation/engagement
OpenCoesione web portal:
homepage contents

18. Projects and funds
(total or subets according to
user’s query)
Interactive graphs for
immediate
distribution of
investment and
number of projects
by nature and policy
theme
Financing opportunities
Direct search of projects (also through
the official project’s code - CUP) or
public authorities related to projects,
or other recipients of projects
Direct access to locations (regions,
provinces, municipalities) through
interactive maps and search to
discover the number of projects
undertaken, the amount of overall
investments in the place and the list
of projects
Homepage highlights
Slideshow of the latest news
Selection of projects based on progress

19. Projects with most
funding
Implementing bodies
with most funding
Projects completed most recently
Dynamic graph on
developments in total
commitments and payments
Homepage highlights

20. Reuse and participation:
> At the School of OpenCohesion
> Monithon

21. OPEN DATA, DATA JOURNALISM AND CIVIC MONITORING
ON COHESION POLICY FOR EUROPEAN STUDENTS
(since 2013)

22. ASOC engage High School students and teachers in civic monitoring researches to
discover how public money is spent.
The project promotes the principles of aware citizenship, encourages responsible use of
ICT, including open data, and social media, fosters civic monitoring of public funding,
also aiming to implement and transfer innovative practices at European level,
strengthen the educational sector, build a community of active and aware citizens,
improve civic engagement, promote the acquisition of digital skills and key
competences among the students.
Relevant partners of the Relevant partnership with European and National public
institutions and selected civic society organisations (“ASOC Friends”)
At the School of OpenCohesion:
raising a new generation of awareness
At the School of OpenCohesionl (ASOC) is
an innovative interdisciplinary educational
project aimed at high school students.
By working on a storytelling research
based on cohesion projects, they
experience how cohesion policy affects
their territories.

23. From the first pilot in Italy (2013) the project reached overall
more than 26,000 students and 2,000 teachers
with 800 monitored projects freely selected

24. At the School of OpenCohesion: the lessons
Educational content available in English:
http://www.ascuoladiopencoesione.it/en/lessons
Educational model ready to be reused and easily adapted
to further public policy issues

25. Sanjay Pradhan – CEO, Open Government Partnership
“At the School of OpenCohesion should be spread
all over the EU Countries to improve citizen engagement”
High Level Conference on Good Governance in Cohesion Policy, Brussels, 6 February 2020

26. Monithon.eu

27. Monithon infographics (Italian monitoring reports)

28. ASOC EU monitoring researches: a stories selection

29. www.opencoesione.gov.it
info@opencoesione.gov.it
@opencoesione
www.ascuoladiopencoesione.it
www.monithon.eu