2019 Government Steering Committee Elections

Last updated: 14 May 2019

To access past OGP Steering Committee Elections results, please click here.

Results

Following the voting window which concluded on May 3, we are pleased to announce that the governments of Germany, Georgia, and Indonesia have been elected by their peers to three-year terms on the OGP Steering Committee beginning on October 1.

Five candidates stood for elections for the three government seats opening in 2019. A total of 55 of the 76 OGP governments (72%) participated in these elections. The voting process was administered by an external company, Civiciti, and the Support Unit only received the final results so as to safeguard the secrecy of the ballots and the integrity of the elections.

As in previous years, the election was done through a ranked voting system in which voters rank candidates by preference. The top-ranked candidate gets 5 points, the second place gets 4 points, third place gets 3 points, fourth place gets 2 points and fifth place gets 1 point. Based on this methodology, the total points for each candidate are: Germany (288), Georgia (191); Indonesia (146), Kenya (137), and Armenia (123). The breakdown of votes are:

SC co-chair election

SC leadership is comprised of a revolving four-member co-chairmanship team (two from government and two from civil society) elected by members of the SC. The four co-chairs make up the Governance and Leadership Subcommittee (GL). SC co-chairs serve for a two-year term, with the first year as ‘incoming’ and the second as ‘lead’ chairs. New Co-Chairs would begin their first year on October 2019.

All interested candidates must submit a letter of candidacy outlining their proposed agendas by responding to the following guiding questions to jaime.mercado@opengovpartnership.org. The deadline for candidates to submit candidacy statements is July 15.

Government Co-chair candidacy guiding questions:

1. What priorities will your government drive during its OGP chairmanship to advance OGP goals?
2. How will your government demonstrate leadership of OGP at the international level during your chairmanship, and what actions can it take to foster a more cohesive leadership body within the Steering Committee?
3. How do you plan to further advance your domestic open government agenda and lead by example during your chairmanship role?
4. Which Ministry will lead your OGP chairmanship (if different from current OGP Ministry)? How do you envision the role and involvement of other government bodies, including your head of state/government, foreign ministry and diplomatic networks, and other ministries to advance your OGP priorities and promote OGP globally?

Overview of the OGP Steering Committee

The SC is OGP’s executive, decision-making body.  Its role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests. It also establishes OGP’s core ideas, policies, and rules and oversees the functioning of the partnership.

The SC is comprised of 22 members (11 from national governments and 11 from civil society), with parity maintained between the two constituencies. The SC has three standing subcommittees to support its work, the Governance and Leadership Subcommittee (GL), the Criteria and Standards Subcommittee (C&S) and the Thematic Leadership Subcommittee (TLS). Each subcommittee comprises equal numbers of government and civil society representatives drawn from the SC.

Some of the key responsibilities of the SC include:

• Set OGP’s agenda and direction with principled commitment to the founding nature and goals of the initiative;
• Lead by example through upholding OGP values, adhering to OGP processes to co-create and implement ambitious open government reforms, and fulfilling financial support of OGP.
• Advance OGP priorities through their participation in the Global OGP Summit, OGP regional and thematic events, and other international opportunities to promote open government;
• Actively participate in Steering Committee and Subcommittee meetings (in-person and virtually), with Ministerial representation when necessary (at least once per year).

SC members serve for a term of three years and are eligible to serve for a maximum of two consecutive terms.  SC members seeking a second term must be reelected to stay on the SC. All SC terms begin on October 1 of the year in which they are elected. To learn more about the SC, please see here.

Current makeup and regional balance

The current makeup of the SC is as follows:

According to the OGP Articles of Governance, the SC should be comprised of a minimum of one and a maximum of four governments from each of the four regions (Africa, Americas, Asia-Pacific and Europe). For 2019, the maximum possible vacant seats for each region are Africa (2); Americas (2); Asia-Pacific (3); and Europe (1).

If there are insufficient candidates from each region to meet the regional quotas, then the government with the next highest number of votes will join the SC, regardless of the region.

Criteria to run for a government seat in the Steering Committee

The criteria to run for a seat in the SC is as follows:

1. Improved or maintained their Eligibility Scores since submitting a letter of intent to join OGP;
2. Acted in accordance with the OGP Declaration;
3. Acted in accordance with OGP processes for the most recently completed Action Plan cycle (i.e. the country must not have acted Contrary to Process through any of the four triggers):
   1. The country does not publish an Action Plan within 4 months of the due date (by December 31).
   2. The government does not meet the International International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) “Involve” requirement during development or “Inform” during implementation of the Action Plan as assessed by the IRM.
   3. The government fails to collect, publish and document a repository on the national OGP website/webpage in line with IRM guidance.
   4. The IRM Report establishes that there was no progress made on implementing any of the commitments in the country’s Action Plan.
4. Paid their financial contribution to OGP; and
5. Complied with the minimum participation and co-creation standards.

In addition to the above requirements, current government members of the SC running for re-election must have regularly attended and participated actively in meetings of the SC and the SC subcommittees with Ministerial-level participation.

Voting process and eligibility

Ahead of the voting period, all active OGP participating governments who are eligible to participate in the elections process will receive a list of candidates (by email), and will have three weeks to complete their online ballots. The voting process is administered by an independent company, and the Support Unit only receives the final results. Ballots are secret and will not be published or shared.

The election is done through a ranked voting system in which voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots from most preferred to least preferred. For example, where there are 5 candidates, the top-ranked candidate gets 5 points, the second place gets 4 points, third place gets 3 points, fourth place gets 2, and fifth place gets 1. Once the voting period closes, all points are added up and the candidate with the most points gets elected (after accounting for the regional balance mechanism). If there is a tie between two candidates, the tie will be broken by determining which candidate received the majority of first-place votes (i.e. if Candidate A and Candidate B both receive 500 points, but Candidate A received 15 first-place votes and Candidate B only received 14 first-place votes, then Candidate A wins).

Timeline for the 2019 elections

• February 11 – 2019 elections process is launched
• April 1 – Deadline for governments to submit candidacy statements
• April 15 – May 3  – List of eligible candidates is announced and voting periods begins
• May 6 – Election results are announced
• May 29 –  New SC members join the May meetings (ministerial and working level) as observers.
• [Extended] July 15 – Deadline for SC members (including newly elected) to submit their candidacy for co-chair role
• October 1 – All SC members begin 2019-2022 term