Cambodia has scored dismally in a global development index, the 2016 Open Data Inventory, which assesses the accessibility of official national statistics from government and private sector websites in 173 countries.
Cambodia ranked 157th in the world and last in Southeast Asia, according to the report, released on Tuesday by NGO Open Data Watch, dropping four points since last year to a total score of 22 out of 100.
It also came last among low-income countries. For coverage of data across the report’s 20 statistical categories, which included poverty and income statistics and government nance, the country’s score dropped from 37 to 23 points.
However, for openness—downloadable, free and nonpropriety content—Cambodia’s score increased from 16 to 20. Cambodia’s best coverage and openness were deemed to be for social statistics, while economic statistics were the worst.
Thy Try, executive director of Open Development Cambodia, an open data website, said a lot of government data is in fact publicly available— just not via the web. “Data collected for public interest should be openly available without restrictions,” he said.
