The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in Open Data Watch Report for 2016 - European Statistical System (ESS)
The non-governmental organisation Open Data Watch (ODW), which deals with research and analysis of the relationship between open data and official statistics, recently released its 2016 annual report from the assessment of national statistical offices of 173 countries in the world.
This non-governmental organisation focuses on open data and works with other NGOs and international agencies on promoting the benefits of using open data, especially in developing countries. 
The ODW research assesses the coverage and openness of official statistics available on the websites of national statistical offices in order to identify gaps, to promote open data policies, to improve access to data, and to encourage dialogue between national statistical offices and data users. Data are grouped into 3 main categories: social statistics, economic statistics and environment statistics. Each category is scored in terms of coverage and openness of data on the basis of ten elements: coverage and disaggregation, data availability for the last 5 years, availability for the last 10 years, data availability at the first administrative level, availability at the second administrative level, possibility of machine readability, data availability in a non-proprietary format, existence of download options, metadata availability, as well as free and unrestricted use of data, without licenses and with attribution only.
According to the 2016 report, the statistical system of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is ranked 30th in the world (out of 173 countries) and 6th among the countries of Southern Europe. Among the candidate countries and potential candidates for EU membership, the statistical system of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is in the first place. 
For further information:
Read more about the Open Data Watch Report for 2016 on the website of the State Statistical Office of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
ESS website contact person Kiril Trajanoski