According to the WHO and UNICEF, 785 million people worldwide don’t have clean water close to home. Clean and readily available water for all is a human right. That’s why improving accessibility, 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 government accountability over this precious natural resource is so vital. 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 (OGP) offers an opportunity to turn the tide and ensure clean water for all.

Commitments around water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) are relatively small within the open government space, with 37 OGP members having made 65 commitments. Over the years, we’ve seen reformers inclusively design a national water plan in Uruguay, collaborate between tenants and landlords in expanding sanitation systems in Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana and create a digital platform for sharing information on rural water and sanitationOGP participating governments are in a unique position to address many of the root causes of water issues, including corruption and poor quality, as well as lack of prioritization, access, equity, and... services in Paraguay. These reforms have created opportunities that have led to vast improvements in basic quality of life for citizens.

An important contributor to the development of commitments on WASH in OGP is the Community of Practice on Water and Open Government. This group of organizations is working hard to promote fairer, more reliable and more efficient water and sanitation delivery by connecting the WASH and OGP networks and developing valuable recommendations for OGP action plans.

As OGP celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, the Community of Practice is looking ahead to the future of WASH commitments in the Partnership. Through a co-creative process, they’ve launched the Open Government and Water and Sanitation Declaration, a set of recommendations and an international call to bring together water and open government reformers and mobilize ambitious and impactful WASH reforms. Reformers can pair these recommendations with in-country advocacy and use their domestic OGP dialogue to trigger concrete action. With the addition of 56 new OGP Local members, we’re looking forward to more opportunities to improve people’s access to water and sanitation at the local level.

The Declaration’s sections on participation and accountability especially resonate with our research based on 10 years of OGP data, which shows two important things. First, that strong and inclusive co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive... leads to well-designed and more ambitious commitments. Second, that if the collaboration continues during implementation, we get better results. Simply put, if done well, participation delivers better results.  

While most OGP members focus on the transparency side of water and open government, commitments around participation and accountability offer the most promise. Ensuring underserved and marginalized communities are included in the co-creation and implementation of reforms is essential. But participation processes are not just about giving citizens a role in shaping policy, it’s also a key accountability mechanism. Some OGP WASH commitments include processes for citizens to give input on services, but no commitments include an additional accountability step of authorities giving citizens feedback on how their input was used. This is where OGP members can be ambitious and raise the bar.

We are keen to continue working closely with the WASH community, encouraging our members to use the Declaration as a guidepost and jointly pushing to get more ambitious commitments that are better delivered and that put citizens – and their needs – back at the heart of government. 

If you are interested in supporting the uptake of the Declaration and sending a clear message on the importance of addressing WASH through an open government lens, please fill out the form in English or Spanish. Please contact Elizabeth.Moses@wri.org or WaterOpenGovernment@siwi.org with any questions about the Declaration.