Israel End-of-Term Report 2015-2017

Israel’s second action plan focused on improving the Freedom of Information (FOI) law and the use of technology to increase public participation. While the second action plan saw improved levels of consultation, some completed commitments lacked ambition.

Commitment	Overview	Well-Designed? *	Major or Outstanding Results? **
Contract transparency	Proactively disclose contracts between the state and the private sector.	No	Yes
Legislation transparency	Publish legislation on Knesset website with input from civil society.	No	Yes
Freedom of Information website	Expand information on a centralized website and increase awareness and use.	No	Yes

* Commitment is evaluated by the IRM as being specific, relevant, and potentially transformative
** Commitment is evaluated by the IRM as having major or outstanding results in terms of the ‘Did it Open Government?’ variable

Consultation during the second year of implementation improved. The government went beyond superficial consultations with civil society, to active dialogue.

Did not act contrary to OGP process A country is considered to have acted contrary to process if one or more of the following occurs: The National Action Plan was developed with neither online or offline engagements with citizens and civil society The government fails to engage with the IRM researchers in charge of the country’s Year 1 and Year 2 reports The IRM report establishes that there was no progress made on implementing any of the commitments in the country’s action plan

No/little civil society involvement Narrow/ little governmental consultation

Israel’s second action plan led to the proactive government disclosure of information, and streamlining FOI requests.

Commitment Title	Well-designed?*	Complete	Major or Outstanding Results?**	Overview
1. Freedom of Information Unit	No	No	No	This commitment looked to improve implementation of the FOI law by extending the authority of the FOI unit. However, the government did not expand the scope of the Unit.
2. Freedom of Information website	No	Yes	Yes	In 2017, the government received over 4,000 FOI requests through the newly centralized website. This represents a significant increase from 2016.
3. Contract transparency	No	Yes	Yes	Previously, state-private sector contracts were only available through FOI requests. As of 2017, tens of thousands of contracts have been proactively disclosed in compliance with a 2014 government resolution.
4. Unified government website	No	Yes	No	This commitment aimed to make government information and services more accessible. The scope of government agencies that joined the unified website and the information made available on it were limited.
5. Data.gov	No	Yes	Yes	The government published over 400 new datasets to data.gov between 2015 and 2017. This represents a significant increase from previous years, and many of the new datasets are of public importance.
6. Satisfaction with government services	No	No	No	While the government surveyed many state institutions to measure the quality of their public services, this commitment did not lead to improvements in open government.
7. Legislation transparency	No	Yes	Yes	Previously, there was no free online source for information on Israeli legislation. The Knesset now publishes all bills on a central website, including their history and status.
8. Public participation tool box	No	Yes	No	The government created five tools to help agencies manage public participation processes, one of which led to improved consultations while developing Israel’s third action plan.
9. Integrated public participation	No	No	No	This commitment aimed to improve the culture of public participation. Overall, public participation processes are better documented, though these processes still lack accountability.

* Commitment is evaluated by the IRM as being specific, relevant, and potentially transformative
** Commitment is evaluated by the IRM as having major or outstanding results in terms of the ‘Did it Open Government?’ variable