Iraqi Government Openness Index Report

The Openness Index project aims to measure the two indicators of openness and open data of the Iraqi government and publish them through a website whose data is available to everyone and can be compared, analyzed and copied. Tawasoul contracted an expert and designed a methodology that includes (103) questions by relying on international standards in measuring openness and open data indicators and adapting them to the Iraqi context 

Given the specificity of this context, in a country that transitioned to democracy after 2003, which will make it possible to assess the extent of progress in this experience despite the difficult and different transitional conditions that it went through, and in light of the status quo, it became necessary to strengthen and further improve democratic practices in Iraq.

Openness is a prerequisite for democracy because it allows citizens to obtain the information and knowledge necessary for equal participation in political life, effective decision-making, and holding institutions accountable for the policies they pursue.

The Openness Index measures the degree to which the Iraqi government is open to citizens and society, and is based on the following four principles 1) Transparency, 2) Accessibility, 3) Integrity, and 4) awareness.

The principle of transparency includes organizational information, budget and public procurement procedures being publicly available and published. Accessibility is related to ensuring and respecting free access to information, improving the availability of information through a mechanism for public debate and enhancing interaction with citizens. Integrity consists of a mechanism to prevent corruption, a code of ethics and lobbying regulations. The last principle, awareness, refers to monitoring and evaluating the policies undertaken by organizations.

In accordance with international standards and recommendations as well as good practice examples, these principles are developed through specific quantitative and qualitative indicators that are assessed on the basis of: Accessibility of information on the official websites of the institutions, quality of the legal framework for individual cases, other sources of public information and questionnaires submitted to the institutions.

Tawasul has also developed a website based on code that allows the calculation of weights to measure the openness and open data indicators according to specially designed algorithms.

During the monitoring phases, Tawasul worked on collecting and monitoring data through a number of means, including analyzing the legal environment for openness methodology indicators, monitoring government websites (the website of the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers - the website of the Prime Minister's Media Office), as well as providing access to information and conducting field visits to the concerned departments.

The Iraqi government's openness index reached (25.82%), while the percentage of open data reached (5.19%). The reason for the low openness and open data indicators is due to the Iraqi government's tendency to withhold and not share data, information and reports through its website.

Laws, statutes, regulations, instructions, work reports, plans and strategies are not published on the website, as well as financial reports, final accounts, the state budget, and reports that include information on public debt are not available for citizens to view.

In addition, the absence of the Right of Access to Information Law and its lack of enactment so far has contributed significantly to the low openness index, as there are approximately (20) questions concerned with ensuring the right of citizens to request and request information.

On the other hand, we are witnessing good progress in the content of the financial disclosure form, which includes a variety of data that contributed to the increase in the openness of the (integrity) domain to reach (39.13%).

It seems that the Iraqi government needs to adopt policies, strategies and plans that promote openness, transparency and access to information, and it is important for the House of Representatives to vote on the Right to Information Law.