The Open Government Partnership
BY ALEXANDER TSATSURIN
The Open Government Partnership is a multinational collaboration which aims at promoting open, accountable and responsive governance within the country members. Created in 2011 by Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa and the US, it now embraces 79 countries with 20 local level governments being represented (i.e. cities of Paris, Madrid, Austin etc.). The final purpose of OGP is to encourage openness, transparency, accountability and citizens participation in the policy-making process of its members.
In fact, if a country wants to adhere to Open Government Partnership it has to pass successfully some “stages”. First, the candidate country has to embrace the Open Government Declaration which proclaims all the main values and principles (Values Check) of the Partnership itself. As far as the country assumes the Declaration it is meeting the Core Eligibility Criteria which measures a government’s performance across four key areas of open government (fiscal transparency, access to information, public officials’ asset disclosure, and citizen engagement). Then the country is to appoint a leading ministry or to create an agency within a ministry. By the way, not only must the country show its interest in joining OGP, but it also has to engage and cooperate with national civil societies which reflects one of the key tenets of Partnership — profound cooperation between governments and civil organizations.
It is crucial to be mentioned how OGP actions are taking place. Every Partnership member has to elaborate and Action Plan in cooperation with social societies which will include provisions for government to implicate on the national level. Each Action Plan has to include a 2 year “roadmap” of actions which are likely to be made in order to achieve higher transparency, openness etc. Moreover, each Action Plan consists of a specific number of commitments. For instance, there are 21 commitments for France to consider in its 2018–2020 Action Plan[1]. Not until the country begins to act, is it considered as a full member of OGP. The implementation itself represents the “government works, civil societies criticize” formula which encourages a more profound cooperation among all the entities involved. During carrying out an Action Plan the country has to publish its results online (at least every 6 months). What is more, it should be available for citizens to comment on every issue if they find it necessary. By the way, OGP also holds summits every year with the first one having taken place in Brasilia in 2012 and the last one in Ottawa this year.
In general, OGP seems to represent a great and, what is crucial, an effective initiative to establish open governments all over the world. What is significant, it has also succeeded in embracing all kind of countries (more developed, less developed, developing etc.) with promoting equality among them. Moreover, identifying problems and creating solutions is made not only within one specific country but it also implies a cross-multinational cooperation which seems to me an important point to mention. It is also necessary to say that by promoting the multinational connections, OGP encourages experience “exchange” so that more experienced, “skillful” nations will be able to share their success with the others.
[1] https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/France-Action-Plan-2018-2020-English.pdf
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