Open data and spatial data infrastrcucture development in Moldova

The Republic of Moldova, formerly part of Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, is independent since August 1991. Moldova is situated in the Southern part of Eastern Europe and covers area of approximately 33 700 km2, of which about 62% is agricultural land. To properly manage land use and revitalize the agricultural sector, the Republic of Moldova needs urgently to have updated accurate geospatial information.During the last 14 years (2006-till now) the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (NMFA) throw Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority (SK) is assisting the Government of Moldova throw Agency for Land Relations and Cadastre (ALRC) in preparation of geographic information (Orthoimagery, Digital Terrain Model and Base Maps) and with solution for distribution of geographic data via Internet https://www.moldova-map.md/ .The assistance from Norway has significantly contributed to improvements of public services. One major goal of this cooperation is to support Moldova with reference data urgently needed to solve problems connected to property registration, security of tenure, land conflict’s resolution, decision making at all levels and good Land Governance.In April 2012, the Government of Moldova joined the Open Government Partnership initiative where it committed to increase public access to information, promote transparency of governance and ensure citizens’ participation to governance, by using advanced information technologies. One of the tools that ensure Government openness is the open data portal www.date.gov.md, where all government institutions, constantly post data sets. The open data principles are facilitates citizens’ access to the data of the ministries and central public administration.Although the Government of Moldova, through ALRC, has been making special efforts to administer the generation, updating, and distribution of spatial information, issues still exist. These include an unclear data sharing policy, redundancy of spatial data, the lack of spatial data for decision support and crisis management, and a relatively low awareness about the use and benefits of spatial information. The services from the ALRC can be accessed either through a user name and password or through a solution with a web-server giving the user’s system a ticket, which ensures safety and counting. The limited number of network services, datasets and applications in Moldova are available through the http://www.geoportal.md and http://www.geoportalinds.gov.md/. The main objective of the given report is an analysis of Open Data and NSDI development in Moldova.