German Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière announces Germany’s participation in OGP
Press release: German Government, 7 Dec. 2016
“Democracy means listening and reaching out”
Representing Germany’s Federal Chancellor at the Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More Global Summit in Paris, the Federal Minister of the Interior, Dr Thomas de Maizière, today announced Germany’s participation in the OGP initiative. French President François Hollande had invited government representatives from all over the world to attend the summit. The Open Government Partnership is an initiative supported by 71 states to promote open government and modern administration. Cooperation in this forum focuses on transparent processes, civil society engagement and the use of new technologies to meet the challenges of today’s societies.
“Our democracies derive their strength first and foremost from our ability to listen. Open and constructive cooperation between government and citizens: I believe that is the essence of open government. With our 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... to open government we make an important contribution to more 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, more participation and more innovation, be it in order to strengthen civic engagement, promote the use of new technologies or meet security needs. Germany’s participation in the OGP is an important step on this path”, Federal Minister de Maizière stated.
Already when adopting the coalition agreement, the German government parties had agreed on Germany’s participation in the Open Government Partnership. Today’s declaration by the Federal Minister of the Interior marks the beginning of the Federal Government‘s commitment to regularly draw up action plans. These action plans will contain different measures to be taken in a broad range of policy areas on a variety of forward-looking topics such as Open DataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici.... Civil society will be asked to participate in discussing and accompanying these measures to trigger learning processes, build trust and make reform projects visible.
Supplied by the government of Germany.