Nepal

To monitor and measure the openness of data in the context of our country, Nepal, we decided to continue to contribute to the Global Open Data Index. We think the Index - apart from bringing direct benefits to the work of policy-makers, researchers, activists and data users - has become an useful and powerful tool to gather information around data availability, which can be easily peer-reviewed, used and understood by anyone around the world.

Data Journalists are also one of the beneficiaries of the Global Open Data Index. They can create stories from the data, with a high reach potentially among the general public, by making visualizations from it, and comparing it with past data.

Nepal is small, developing country, but there are many national and international communities who are working towards openness, transparency and accountability. Social organizations, activists and other concerned entities are taking Global Open Data Index as a platform to raise their voices for open data, and many communities in Nepal are helping them through advocacy.

Recently, many government officers and policy-makers have started to understand the value of open data, and some of the government offices of Nepal have begun to release vast amounts of the information and data. Yet, while some information is now easily accessible, some are still trapped in paper records.

The Government in Nepal has also started to update their website data and information regularly, but only few of them are in open format. We can now easily access updated government budget, government spending, election result data, etc., online, and many of the other government offices are also starting to develop portals for data publishing. Hopefully, very soon, the Government will start to publish their data in open formats too.