Faces of Open Goverment – Mukelani Dimba

In this section of the OGP newsletter, we feature open government champions both from government and civil society, and ask them about their OGP experiences. Here is what they have to say:  

Give one example or anecdote of why open government matters to you personally? How is it making a difference in people’s lives?

Because of my age I do not remember South African life before Apartheid. By the time I was born, Nelson Mandela had already been in prison for more than 15 years, the massacre of students in Soweto had occurred a year before in 1976. Apartheid was already a well-oiled machine, the oppressive government was feared, loathed, inaccessible and yet omnipresent and omnipotent. I grew up with a view of government as a mysterious and evil force that dictated the course of our lives, unchallenged and unseen. For me open government is and should be the opposite of that which I experienced growing up in Apartheid South Africa. It is about democracy being practiced beyond the electoral season: people fully being informed on a day-to-day basis of the decisions and actions of their government and freely debating those decisions and actions, and by so doing influencing them.

Why does the issue you are working on matter within the OGP context?

TransparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More and accountability are respectively the means and the outcome of OGP. At the core of OGP is the ability of the citizens to be fully informed about how governments make decisions on their behalf. Freedom of information, my area of expertise, is the necessary tool to connect the citizens with decision making at government level. Without information the people will not be able to influence what government does on their behalf and at worse they may not even know what decisions are being made on their behalf. 

Describe one OGP commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... from your country/region that you are proud of? How could/should civil society add value and make this one happen?

The commitment on the possible establishment of an environmental data portal comes our of South Africa’s first national action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... and it’s one that I’m most proud of because it emerged from civil society’s real concerns about the impact of lack of coordination among agencies that deal with mining, environmental affairs, water affairs and human settlements. The fact that each of these agencies ran separate databases on which they base their decisions has the consequence, for example, of finding mining licences and water use licences being issued in areas in very close proximity to residential areas. We believe that if the commitment on an environmental data portal is implemented correctly it will improve the quality of decision making on these and related issues. 

How is your organization/civil society in your country engaging with government on OGP?

ODAC has been engaging with the OGP since the inception of the initiative in 2011 and has led civil society efforts on the OGP in South Africa. Initially engagement between civil society and government on the OGP was difficult as a result of differences on implementation of the initiative in South Africa. It can be argued that government and civil society organisations pursued their OGP efforts independently of each other, for example when the government produced the first self-assessment report, civil society felt obliged to produce their own shadow report to cover matters that, according to civil society had not been addressed sufficiently and accurately in the official report.

However this parallel approach to OGP implementation has been changed and government and civil society have begun to explore ways of working much closely together and to strengthen collaboration. In late 2014 a civil society feedback session information session was convened by the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) and a very successful civil society information session was convened by ODAC and supported by the DPSA. While the pattern of government-civil society engagement has not been the most exemplary thus far, it is expected that this will change in 2015 which is the “runway year” for South Africa’s chairmanship of the OGP in 2015/2016. 

What are you worried or excited about if you think about OGP going forward?

The most attractive thing about the OGP is the availability of a common-platform for co-determination of a country’s open governance priorities. I find it exciting that we are now in a position of doing this in a few African countries and I hope this can be replicated to more countries even if it is not within the formal context of the OGP. OGP participating countries need to show that this is possible and then let others follow voluntarily. 

Is there a specific thing you want to push for as a Steering CommitteeThe Steering Committee is OGP’s executive decision-making body. Its role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests; establish OGP’s core ideas, policies, and ru... member?

As a Steering Committee member from Africa my immediate focus will be in my neighbourhood – the African continent. I’ll be keen to work on establishing effective peer learning interventions as a basis effective implementation of OGP in the eight African participating countries. I attach more capital in the instrumentality of open government in enhancing socio-economic opportunities for the marginalised in developing countries. For me openness in the conduct of public affairs will only find meaning in the context of developing countries, as all African countries are, if its focus is on people’s daily needs and its outcome is some form of material change in their circumstances. 

Any message to the broader civil society community going forward?

I’ve heard a few of my civil society colleagues express some skepticism regarding the OGP, many viewing it as a PR exercise by governments participating in it. This is made worse if the participating government does not have a good track record in accountability and transparency. However as civil society we should not let this blind us to the opportunities presented by OGP, including using OGP as a leverage to make those governments more accountable and transparent.