In with the New: OGP Horizons End-of-Year Round Up

As the year draws to a close, we take time to revisit what has been learned and reflect on what it can tell us about what might come next.

By Joseph Foti

OGP Horizons launched in early 2024. We at the OGP Support Unit had the idea that we would look at the big stories in the news and the issues that newly elected officials were talking about, even if they were not yet showing up in OGP action plans. We knew that open government has a role to play in tackling today’s toughest challenges, though it’s not always clear how.

When a project like Horizons starts, it is not always clear where it is going. Over time, though, patterns emerge. To that end, we thought it would be helpful to pull together some of the themes we’ve explored this year with our many contributors.

So, here it is — a year in the rear-view mirror, with a bit of curation.

The new economy

Let’s face it: the new economic consensus is that there is no consensus. Or maybe there never was. But with the rise of China, the shock of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the lingering effects of COVID-19, it seems like governments are getting back into economic promotion, big time. More and more, politicians seem unwilling to simply “leave it to the market,” for better or worse. A big part of Horizons this year dealt with how to do that in a way that was helpful. Here are a few highlights.

• Sovereign wealth funds: Governments are getting into investment and moving revenue into the market. In this guest post, we looked at the embezzlement, money laundering, and security risks of huge — and increasingly popular — state-managed funds.
• Investment screening: Foreign direct investment has long been a goal of many governments. But it comes with risk. This post looked at how local governments can screen for malign foreign influence to safeguard their communities from corruption and security threats.
• Supply chain transparency: As governments procure huge projects, give out tax breaks to companies, and stockpile raw materials, they need to know where taxpayer money goes. Who controls each link in the supply chain? And are they acting in accordance with the law?
• Research and innovation: As the US and China pull ahead in major, capital-intensive research and development, other parts of the world are looking at how they can innovate faster. This piece looked at how the European Union can bring the public into these discussions as an accelerant.
• Planning and permitting for energy: Slow permitting processes lock in polluting industries and prevent the production of abundant clean energy. At the same time, permitting processes are one of the main ways that people have a say in government action. This blog gave some suggestions on how to reconcile the need for efficiently process permit applications with the importance of public consultation.
• Expanding and implementing the Paris Climate Agreement: OGP is a flexible tool for implementing governance reforms, especially those essential to meet the climate goals of the Paris Agreement. This piece explored three ways OGP add value: as a sandbox, a backstop, and a specialized tool.

Security and corruption

OGP was born in a moment of national security overreach. The United States had (and likely continues to have) a serious issue with overclassification, surveillance, and misinformation that was especially acute during the George W. Bush administration. Similarly, Brazil’s freedom of information law was stalled out for decades due to resistance from the former military. The founding of OGP created an international moment to make public progress on these issues. And indeed, we have established more checks and balances in these areas.

Of course, the issues of surveillance have not gone away. If anything, our understanding is that they have only expanded, accelerated by the development of new technologies and business models. Yet, there’s also an understanding that some amount of surveillance is necessary. The last decades have seen organized crime and corrupt governments team up in new ways to fund illegal activities and advance their own interests. Parts of the world have seen an uptick in crime, although most have begun to trend back to their pre-pandemic normal levels.

Achieving global goals like ending slavery, illegal fishing, or deforestation requires the right kind of surveillance. Crime gets directly in the way of other priorities–community safety (especially for poor people and women), public investment, and achieving climate goals. So the challenge is, what kind of surveillance is tolerable in a democratic society and when are there appropriate controls?

• Street crime and national security transparency: This pair of pieces looked at how open government approaches can raise the cost of organized crime and help ensure that enforcement minimizes abuses of power.
• Pieces on cryptocurrency, corporate ownership complexity, satellite imaging, and the link between white collar crime and grand corruption looked at how financial secrecy undermines democracy and the rule of law. Bringing in public scrutiny is essential in cutting down on illegal and costly ventures.
• Finally, a more theoretical piece looked closely at artificial intelligence and corruption. We posited that the “tech-enabled corruption” framing is too narrow — government contracts and monopoly power matters too, as does the manipulation of regulators by the corrupt.

New and old technologies

Of course, Horizons would not be a future-facing blog if it didn’t also cover emerging technology.

• Implementing the Digital Services Act: This blog took a closer look at the transparency, participation, and accountability components of the EU’s DSA, especially the “trusted flaggers” innovation.
• A trio of posts dove deeper into the capacity of governments to meet our AI moment. Two looked specifically at what capabilities governments need to manage a data-centric world and how to measure that capacity. A third, on the eve of the UN Summit of the Future, posited that open government data remains at the core of trustworthy AI.
• Finally, touching on two OGP classic themes, Horizons looked into the good and the bad of justice and AI and what machine learning and generative AI mean for the right to information.

Looking ahead

Next year, we plan to stick with some classics with a new twist, from political finance to open contracting. We may also dive a bit deeper into public finances, migration and labor, and the energy sector, and we clearly could use more work on gender and youth.

But, more than anything, send us your ideas for collaboration. Many or most of this year’s work was the result of community contribution and inspiration. Next year will be full of surprises, but we can predict with surety that success will depend on us working together.