T

he Presidential Working Unit for the Supervision and Management of Development (UKP4), in collaboration with the World Bank and civil society groups, has recently launched the country'€™s very own open data project, the Indonesia Data Portal.

Launched simultaneously with the Open Data Movement, the Indonesia Data Portal has been developed to help meet increasing public demand for easily accessible official government data.

According to the World Bank'€™s senior public sector specialist, Bernard Myers, the launch of this open data movement was a reflection of Indonesia'€™s global leadership in the worldwide Open Government Partnership (OGP).

'€œ[The portal] is in many ways a commitment to the ideal that development solutions no longer have to be a monopoly of government, researchers and development institutions. Instead, a wide variety of other stakeholders can now be engaged in this process,'€ Myers said.

The portal, accessible through data.id, offers around 700 sets of data from 23 government institutions, including those from pioneering provincial administrations like Jakarta, Bandung and Bojonegoro.

Through this initiative, the UKP4 said it hoped that the number of data sets would increase and be continually updated in order to encourage public participation in providing feedback to the government.

The Indonesia Data Portal was officially announced by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the Asia-Pacific OGP Conference in Bali back in May.

The portal provides data on a number of different fields '€” economics, education, population, energy and health '€” and can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection.

According to UKP4 deputy head Mardianto Jatna, the user-friendly website embraced the three-pronged concept of '€œsearch, see, use'€, grouping data together in easy-to-search categories and offering data visualizations '€” data processed into visual representations '€” that the public could freely use.

For instance, the website is able to retrieve and showcase data on the rate of inflation in Jakarta, and even provide comparisons with nationwide statistics.

The resource could also be a useful tool for business, Mardianto added. '€œWith the launch of this data, innovation is encouraged,'€ he said, citing the numerous applications for business startups in using the data.

Tara Hidayat, the working unit'€™s deputy for strategic initiatives and international relations, said that in order for the open data ecosystem to be useful, the government needed to create synergy with the public. '€œWe know that data exists everywhere, but we still have a hard time finding it. This is what brought about the data portal,'€ Tara said.

'€œThe challenge now is maintaining continuity and quality,'€ she said.

In addition to the main data.id website, the Open Government Indonesia movement also offers other service-related portals such as satulayanan.net, satupemerintah.net, the comprehensive mapping website Satu Peta (tanahair.indonesia.go.id) and the Lapor government feedback and irregularities reporting application.