---
authors:
- anders
redirect_from: /2013/03/OpenSpending-around-the-world-Week-9/
title: OpenSpending around the world, Week 9
---

### Fresh data and activities from OpenSpending 
During Open Data Day we saw activities across cities.In Ottawa [Stephane Frechette](https://twitter.com/sfrechette) helped upload budget data for [city for 2013](http://openspending.org/ottawa_exprev_2013/views/treemap-city-of-ottawa-expenditure-revenue-summary-by-category-2013-estimate). 

In Goettingen, Germany the Pirate Party used OpenSpending to visualize the city budget for [expenditures and revenues](http://offenerhaushalt.piratenpartei-goettingen.de/goettingen-haushalt-2011.php?view=).

[Victoria Vlad](https://twitter.com/Victoriavladd) from Expert Grup added budget data from [Moldova](http://openspending.org/sintezabugetuluidestat2013cheltuieli/views/vizualizare-sinteza-bugetului-de-stat-2013-pe-cheltuieli) and wrote a [guest post](http://openspending.org/blog/2013/02/28/Budget-Stories.html) yesterday about BudgetStories.md, a new project which is trying to explain budget data recently released in Moldova.  

As a growing number of city budgets are to OpenSpending we're looking to map these in a GoogleDoc, in order to visualise them on the site. You can help by adding the cities, which are already on OpenSpending in [this GoogleDoc](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqR8dXc6Ji4JdHZZNUpWQ2paY3FfYTdFNXkxZXZDTWc#gid=0). 

On Thursday March 7, we're organising another Community Call, as Alan Hudson from ONE joins us to discuss: "How to use spending data to estimate unit costs and development outputs across the world?"
All details on the agenda and how to register to join are available [here](http://wdmmg.okfnpad.org/22?).  

### Spending transparency around the world
In the Miami Herald, [Nathaniel Heller](https://twitter.com/Integrilicious) of Global Integrity called the state of [financial transparency in Florida](http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/17/3237026/floridas-murky-fiscal-transparency.html#.USD_R5DCCvg.twitter) into question following an unsuccessful launch of a $5m transparency portal.  

During this week a one year old [blog post titled "Fiscal transparency (is not enough)"](http://davidsasaki.name/2012/04/fiscal-transparency-is-not-enough/) by [David Sasaki](https://twitter.com/oso), got the (again) from the budget geek community and sparked [this response](http://openbudgetsblog.org/2013/02/28/twitter-activism-is-not-enough/) from the OpenBudgetsBlog. Both posts raise releavnt questions about the importance of access to fiscal data and how to measure the release of such financial data.  

In a thorough local spending story Ars Electronica reports how a one-room library in West Virginia purchased a [$20,000 CISCO router](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/why-a-one-room-west-virginia-library-runs-a-20000-cisco-router/). 

### Resources
The state of New Jersey (US) has produced a useful [guide for citizens (PDF)](http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/omb/publications/12citizensguide/pdf/citguide.pdf) to make the budget more accessible. 

### Events on our radar
March 7: OpenSpending Community Call with Alan Hudson. All details are available [here](http://wdmmg.okfnpad.org/22?).

March 9: [A Hackathon in Ville de Gatineau, Canda](http://gatineauouverte-hackathon03-esli.eventbrite.ca/) will among other topics deal with OpenSpending. The budget from the city [is already up](http://openspending.org/gatineau_deprev_cat_12_13).

May 2-4: [Data Harvest](http://www.wobbing.eu/news/look-back-data-harvest-conference) will bring geeks, journalists and civi hackers together in Brussels to wrangle EU spending data from [farm subsidies](http://farmsubsidy.org/) and the [Comission](http://openspending.org/eu-commission-fts). Information about how to register will follow.

We're hosting bi-monthly community calls, and are eager to hear your [ideas](https://twitter.com/openspending) for topics we should cover. 
How to get involved? Join the discussion on our [mailing list](http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/openspending). 
