by: Emily Vizmonte, Cirrolytix Research Services
With the rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, governments are transitioning from a traditional governance model into a smart governance model. Smart governance is a government model based on information communication technology. S.M.A.R.T is an abbreviation, where S stands for social, M for mobile, A for analytics, R for radical openness, and T for trust. Smart governance provides personalized and citizen-friendly services, uses mobile technologies, makes policy decisions using big data analytics, provides easy access to information, and is committed to effective cybersecurity. Key drivers of smart governance include, among other things, capacity building, citizen engagement, applications & co-creation, and technology/infrastructure (Sarker & Wu, 2018).
In line with this, data-driven development is an important initiative in the journey toward smart governance. The Data-Driven Development in the Philippines (PH3D) program aims to promote a development approach that is centered on people and driven by data. This will be realized through the use of technology-enabled decision-making processes that incorporate the views and contributions of the local community to enable the advancement of local government units (LGUs).
As part of PH3D, LGUs were given the opportunity to turn their traditional reports into a dashboard by introducing the use of Looker (previously Google Data Studio) as a reporting tool and enabling LGU partners to use the data platform.
Looker is a data platform that allows users to create interactive dashboards and reports using data from various sources. LGUs can use this tool to collect and analyze data on various aspects of governance such as health, education, and infrastructure. Looker can be used to create a dashboard that visualizes the data in a way that is easy to understand. These visualizations can be customized to suit the needs and preferences of the LGU, allowing users to perform drill-down analysis within the dashboard.
In addition, Looker has the capability to connect several data types coming from varying data sources. This would be helpful to LGUs considering that government information comes from numerous data sources and in varying formats.
Among many benefits, Looker’s shareability can be highlighted as it allows LGUs to share the dashboard with other relevant stakeholders, such as other government agencies or the general public. This supports the advocacy for open government, which promotes transparency and accountability and encourages collaboration. Overall, with proper training and continuous development on data management, the use of Looker would enable LGUs to perform data-driven analysis in a more flexible and timely manner.
Learn more about the Looker Platform: www.looker.com/product/looker-difference
References:
Sarker, Md Nazirul Islam & Wu, Min & Hossin, Md. (2018). Smart governance through big data: Digital transformation of public agencies. 62-70. 10.1109/ICAIBD.2018.8396168.