The challenge is not only to publish open data but also to help citizens understand and contribute to it
Photo: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xEnevTDiNdvSiLAslMoS4LFsEKXWa6UW/view
Creative Commons licence. The photo credit is: Stefan Didam, Schmallenberg.
Public institutions in Europe are publishing more open data than ever before, but access alone does not make data truly open. Open data is not only a technical standard or an administrative obligation. At its best, it is a public resource: information that belongs to the public, can be freely accessed, understood, reused, and transformed into knowledge that supports better decisions and stronger democratic oversight.
North Macedonia is one of the candidate states to join the European Union, where open data provisions for all government institutions are required by law. However, in November 2025, when the last EU enlargement report was released assessing the country’s readiness to join, some findings suggested that provisions for public scrutiny of government work were not fully established or accessible. This indicates that further efforts are needed to ensure that public-sector data is consistently published, accessible, and usable in practice.
When public data is open in a meaningful way, it can help people see how institutions work, how public resources are used, how decisions are made, and determine where more accountability is needed. It can support journalists in investigating issues of public interest, civil society organizations in monitoring institutions, researchers in identifying trends, students in learning about public policy, and citizens in asking more informed questions. In this sense, open data can make the government more transparent and easier to understand.
However, publishing data is only the first step. If public information is difficult to find and understand, its use remains largely limited to people with stronger technical skills or research experience. Data may be formally available, but still practically inaccessible. This is why the value of open data also depends on the tools through which it is made available, which make it easier to use.
Bringing parliamentary open data closer to the people
This is where the project, “Parliamentary open data in practice: Building civic engagement,” comes in. It is implemented by the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis” – Skopje (IDSCS), a think tank that is working to strengthen democratic processes through research, analysis, and dialogue with institutions and citizens. IDSCS focuses on good governance, the rule of law, European integration, and creating more space for citizens to take part in decision-making. Through this project, an important question will be explored: how can we make parliamentary open data useful not only for experts, but also for citizens, journalists, civil society organizations, students, and anyyone else who wants to better understand the work of the Parliament?
From “accessible” to “actionable”
The goal of the project is to make already published parliamentary open data more accessible, searchable, and easier to understand for non-technical users. The project is built around three interconnected components: the dashboard, the training component, and the digital campaign.
The first component is the development of a user-friendly dashboard that will make selected Parliament data more practically useful for citizens, journalists, civil society organizations, students, and other interested users. The dashboard will initially focus on data related to parliamentary questions, the “My MP” platform, and citizens’ contact offices, with the possibility of including an additional dataset. It would include summary statistics, searchable and filterable tables, downloadable datasets, and visualizations such as charts, trends over time, and comparative views.
The second component is the training program, designed to build practical skills for using and creating open data. It will target journalists, civil society organizations, students, young people, and other interested users. The training will focus on how to navigate open data portals, read different data formats, interpret information, use data for reporting, advocacy, and civic engagement, and understand how open datasets can be produced or structured in a way that is useful for others.
The third component is the digital campaign, which will promote the dashboard and raise awareness of why open data matters for transparency, accountability, and civic participation. The campaign will include explanatory social media content, visuals, infographics, and short educational materials derived from or linked to the data. Its purpose will be not only to increase visibility of the dashboard, but also to help users understand how to interpret the data and how it can be used for public oversight.
Together, these three components aim to bridge the gap between formal transparency and meaningful civic engagement by making parliamentary data more accessible, building users’ skills to work with open data, and encouraging broader public use of data for monitoring, reporting, and advocacy.
What comes next?
The real value of this initiative will become visible when parliamentary open data isused more actively by the general public, but also in reporting, research, advocacy, and education. The dashboard will make selected data easier to access.
Furthermore, the learning component gives the project a broader meaning: when people learn how to use the accessible open data in their daily practice, it increases transparency and governmental accountability.
Moreover, when citizens and organizations start to not only consume open data but also contribute to the open data environment, they help improve the quality and relevance of public information.
In the longer term, the project is aimed at promoting a culture in which open data is not seen only as something institutions publish, but as something the wider community can use which generates public value. That shift, from access to active use, is what can make open data meaningful for democracy.
