South Africa Action Plan Review 2024-2026

South Africa’s fifth 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... takes a citizen-centric approach to government data 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. The two commitments seek to expand open budget data and establish a framework for 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... principals at the national and municipal levels. The action plan was developed collaboratively between government and civil society, with an aim to revive the OGP process in South Africa.

South Africa’s fifth OGP action plan is a step towards revitalizing South Africa’s OGP process after missing the submission deadlines in 2022 and 2023.[1] In accordance with OGP rules, implementation for this action plan will run from June 2024 to June 2026. While modest in length, the plan shows greater ambitionAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should “stretch government practice beyond its current baseline with respect to key areas of open government.” Ambition captures the po... and clarity than the previous one.

Commitment 1 has modest potential to expand public fiscal data. It prioritizes publishing financial data for autonomous or semi-autonomous public entities (Schedule 3A and 3C) and municipalities. Expanding information on the Vulekamali and GoMuni portals aligns with the National Treasury’s efforts to boost open budgeting and increase its online presence.[2]

Commitment 2 is spearheaded by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Centre for the 4th Industrial Revolution (CSIR 4IR), a new participant in the OGP process. It builds towards a citizen-oriented open-data framework that would ensure all three levels of government publish quality data that is understandable to citizens. Commitment 2 supports South Africa’s recent National Policy on Data Cloud[3] by creating a standardized open data framework.

The action plan aims to support implementation of South Africa’s African Union African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) National Plan of Action. In the next action plan, South Africa’s OGP Steering Committee can consider priority APRM reforms around which civil society and government reformers form a coalition to collaboratively advance. As of January 2025, the government, law clinics, and partners were developing a commitment to submit to the Open Gov Challenge on access to justice.[4]

The action plan resulted from collaboration between the government and non-governmental actors.[5] Persistent lobbying from CSOs motivated the government to commit to the current action plan. Seasoned civil society members also onboarded new government participants, such as CSIR. Moreover, South Africa started the process of transforming the Interim Steering Committee into a formalized multistakeholder forum (MSF). The government and civil society organizations (CSOs) co-created the draft Terms of Reference.[6] Civil society acknowledged the government’s enthusiasm towards revamping the forum.[7]

The IRM recommends that reformers use this action plan cycle to continue strengthening South Africa’s OGP process. The MSF can meet regularly and maintain ongoing communication to support implementation progress and establish ways of working among members. The MSF can communicate progress on both commitments to help demonstrate the value of undertaking reforms through the OGP platform. These steps can build towards expanding participants and reforms in future action plans.

South Africa has made progress towards meeting the minimum requirements under the OGP Participation and Co-Creation Standards. The Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) has worked towards formalizing the OGP Steering Committee and increasing the functionality of the OGP website. South Africa fell short as they did not publish a roadmap with information on how to engage at least two weeks before the start of co-creation. DPSA did publish a roadmap, around halfway through the co-creation period when the action plan was drafted. DPSA also did not conduct public outreach on OGP and opportunities to participate.[8] As a result, civil society had limited awareness that the OGP process was being revitalized, which reduced participants and possible reform areas. The OGP 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... is recommended to ensure sufficient prior notice and public outreach before co-creation of the next action plan to allow broader engagement.

Additionally, inconsistent availability of government websites may present a challenge to implementation. Websites key to commitments in this action plan—such as GoMuni and Vulekamali—were not always functional during review. Consistent availability of these portals will be essential for the commitments to achieve their transparency aims. Reformers can consider opportunities for civil society to help address online information gaps when government websites are not functional.

Promising Commitments

The following review looks at the two commitments that the IRM identified as having the potential to realize the most promising results. Promising commitments address a policy area that is important to stakeholders or the national context. They must be verifiable, have a relevant open government lens, and have modest or substantial potential for results. This review also provides an analysis of challenges, opportunities, and recommendations to contribute to the learning and implementation process of this action plan.

Table 1. Promising Commitments

[1] “South Africa – Procedural Review Resolution by C&S Subcommittee (May 2024),” Open Government Partnership, 21 May 2024, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/south-africa-procedural-review-resolution-by-cs-subcommittee-may-2024.

[2] Prudence Cele (National Treasury), interview by IRM researcher, 4 October 2024.

[3] “National Policy on Data and Cloud,” Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, June 2024, https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202406/50741gen2533.pdf.

[4] Department of Public Service and Administration, pre-publication comment provided to the IRM, January 2025; “Open Gov Challenge,” Open Government Partnership, accessed January 2025, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/the-open-gov-challenge.

[5] Patrick Sokhela (Point of Contact, Department of Public Service and Administration), interview by IRM researcher, 13 September 2024.

[6] “Terms Of Reference for the OGP South Africa Multistakeholder Forum (MSF),” Department of Public Service and Administration, accessed 20 October 2024, https://www.dpsa.gov.za/ogp/documents/2nd/4.%20Proposal%20on%20the%20formalisation%20of%20the%20OGP%20South%20Africa%20MSF%20(002)%20(1).pdf.

[7] Zuki Kota (Member, OGP Steering Committee; Member, South Africa Interim Steering Committee; Program Head, Public Service Accountability Monitor), correspondence with IRM researcher, 7 November 2024.

[8] National Roadmap Towards the Development of the South African National Action Plan,” Department of Public Service and Administration, https://www.dpsa.gov.za/ogp/documents/Annexe%20C%20%20Roadmap%20towards%20the%20%20finalisation%20of%20the%20RSA%20OGP%20NAP%2031%20December%202023.pdf.