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OGP CSC Newsletter – Post OGP Summit updates

Paul Maassen|

Dear Colleagues,

Two weeks ago the first two Regional Meetings of 2014 took place, the Europe and Asia Pacific ones.

The European summit focused on peer learning and explored the role of local government, the European Union and the private sector. European ombudsman Emily O’Reilly called OGP “the most promising 21st Century global development towards making a living reality of open government and good government”. Quite a challenge to live up to! The Asia Pacific one was more of a mini-summit focused on outreach to new countries with a set of strong civil society keynotes defining open government as being a responsive one (Rakesh Rajani), as being about making power truthful, and truth powerful (Aruna Roy) and being about creating civic space (Nwe Zin Win). The latter was also a key ask in the closing statement of the civil society day. You can read more about the meetings and where to find the best videos, tweets and analyses here.
The Steering Committee of OGP met the two days before the Asia Pacific Regional Meeting. The full agenda can be found here. Some of the outcomes:

  • Endorsement of the 4 year strategy and agreement in principle of integration of the civil society coordination team into the Support Unit. For both some details need to be clarified/fleshed out.
  • Broadening the Steering Committee to a total of 22 members (11 for both government and civil society).
  • Agreement that, starting in 2015, OGP will expect all participating governments to contribute towards OGP’s budget with minimum contributions ranging from 10,000 USD for low income countries to 100,000 USD for high income countries.
  • Agreement in principle to have a policy on upholding the values and principles of OGP, as articulated in the Open Government Declaration, but not yet adoption of the actual proposed policy. (More in the Freedominfo post).
  • Agreement that both government and civil society candidates for OGP co-chair should be asked to answer some basic questions about their qualifications and interest, and that based on that Governance & Leadership would make a recommendation to the full Steering Committee in June.

 
One of the most interesting sessions that was held both at both meetings was the IRM team presenting their top-level analysis of the first 40+ independent progress reports, shaped to assess some of the myths around OGP and confirm or bust these. Interesting to watch if you want to know if all these commitments are in the end new/ambitious/on topic/delivered etc.

We are also happy to present as civil society team a new tool for you. We have created a map of who-is-who in the open government world. If you sign up for the newsletter or mailing list on the OGPHub you can provide additional information on who you are and where you work. If you opt-in to be findable you can then be found by your colleagues. The map also gives access to other resources and you can search by country, topic or name. Have a look and if you like it – and are not on it yet – click here to amend your existing data and/or provide extra information.

Closing off: don’t forget to think about nominating yourself or somebody else to join the OGP Steering Committee. Maryati Abdullah, Nikhil Dey and Iara Pietricovsky are rotating off and a total of 5 seats are opening up. If you know somebody or have the ability to engage strategically and effectively at the global level with senior government and civil society members; read and represent the concerns and interests of the civil society community; and powerfully clearly articulate core OGP issues then this is your opportunity. Deadline is June 15 and you can find more information here.
 

Filed Under: Civic Space OGP News Public Participation Right to Information
Open Government Partnership