BOLD in national budget planning - a comparison of international cases

Abstract

Anticipating the continues increase in quantity and consequently their importance, data are becoming a new currency. Overall purpose of this paper is to show the link between Big Open Linked Data (BOLD) and national budget planning. The methodology that follows is a qualitative case-study based approach leading to a comparative analysis of five cases. Research problems investigated are the commonalities and differences that may be identified in the handling of national budget data in developing countries, as well as best practices or potential lessons learned from international cases of handling budget data as BOLD. In addition, the study investigates how Kosovo as a young developing country may benefit from the experiences of other countries. To create a framework of analysis, international cases are reviewed. Their comparison reveals that there are not that many commonalities among these developing countries in terms of issues and challenges regarding the use of BOLD in national budgeting. As it is mainly country specific, the approach used toward BOLD largely depends on the general landscape of each country. In comparison, although there is some progress made, Kosovo is still behind those countries in terms of applying BOLD.