#OpenGov — To Be or Not to Be
Jury Konga, Executive Director
GO Open Data Association (GOOD)
May 16, 2022.
As we celebrate Open Government Week, the GO Open Data Association (GOOD) is looking at the promising history of the Open Government Partnership and current delivery on that promise. The original group of eight countries has now grown to seventy-seven countries, many local members (i.e. sub-national) together with thousands of participating civil society organizations including GOOD.
The Principles of Open Government
The core principles of Open Government can be defined as transparency, accountability and being participatory with stakeholders. There have been additional attributes including integrity and inclusion which further defines these principles as being key to governance in a democratic society. In addition, there are important functional areas that support Open Government such as Open Data, Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy and Open Dialogue for meaningful community engagement.
Our Current Local Perspective of Open Government
GOOD’s mission is to “Support The Open Government And Open Data Principles For Sustainable Community Well-being” and is an active member of civil society in Ontario and Canada . We do this through knowledge sharing, open dialogue and collaboration with a variety of civil society organizations and ongoing interactions with all three levels of governments in Canada. A GOOD representative sits on the Federal Multi-Stakeholder Forum on Open Government. GOOD is the monitoring body (Independent Review) for Ontario’s current OGP Action Plan on Trustworthy AI and serves as the Secretariat and Co-Chair for the Public Sector Open Data (PSOD) Collaborative of municipalities.
What we’ve observed over the last four years has been a reduced level of support for many open gov and open data initiatives and principles. As an example, we undertook the Civil Society monitoring role for the Province of Ontario 2021 OGP Action Plan related to Trustworthy AI (Artificial Intelligence) and this project was suddenly delayed/deferred without a real explanation as to why and where the resources were reallocated — doesn’t address either transparency or accountability. As civil society, we find this unacceptable. The lack of transparency on high risk items such as the use of AI have the potential for significant negative impacts without effective stakeholder engagement.
In a recent survey undertaken with the municipalities who are members of PSOD, the response to a question on the amount of work dedicated to open data was that 56% of the respondents indicated work was done “Off the side of my desk, as time allows”. This is indicative of what appears to be a low prioritization for Open Gov and Open Data and lack of appropriate resourcing for supporting these principles of democracy and lack of openness with citizens and stakeholders.
It’s not our intent to dwell on the challenges with the current state of Open Gov in our environment but rather, we wish to propose some actionable opportunities to further embrace Open Government and provide support and services of value to the diverse set of stakeholders that the government must collaborate with.
These challenges are not unique to the Province of Ontario or its Municipalities and the following proposed actions will benefit all involved in public service delivery.
#OpenGov — Actions to Move Forward
Here’s a start to moving forward:
- OpenGov Advisory. creation of an ongoing Open Government Stakeholder Advisory Committee with Provincial and Civil Society Co-Chairs (similar to Federal MSF);
- OpenGov Dashboard. the development of an Open Government Activity/Project Dashboard for the website that provides transparency and accountability to the public (similar to the EU open Data Monitor);
- Socio-economic impact tool. development of socio-economic impact tool for all open government and open data related projects within the Ontario public service and municipalities (OECD reference);
- Open Decisions. This initiative would align with all the key principles of transparency, accountability and meaningful engagement with the citizens and stakeholders (Open Decisions overview). Associated aspects of Open Decisions include Open Contracting principles, particularly around contracts for technology products and services. Also develop an Open Budget approach that enables citizens to better understand budget processes and decisions and provide meaningful input to them (example reporting and visualization).
The open community shares work and collaboration is the norm. These actions are doable through leveraging work already underway by organizations around the globe. Collaboration will move the Open Government agenda forward in ways that working in silos cannot.
GOOD and the Canadian Open Data Society are collaborating on projects to support Open Government. We are asking for governments to commit to doing their part.
GO Open Data Inc. is a not for profit association based in Ontario, Canada. GOOD can be reached at connect@go-opendata.ca
