Germany Transitional Results Report 2019-2021

This report covers the implementation of Germany’s second action plan for 2019-2021. In 2021, the IRM has implemented a new approach to its research process and the scope of its reporting on action plans, approved by the IRM Refresh.^[1] The IRM adjusted its Implementation Reports for 2018-2020 action plans to fit the transition process to the new IRM products and enable the IRM to adjust its workflow in light of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on OGP country processes.

Action Plan Implementation

The IRM Transitional Results Report assesses the status of the action plan’s commitments and the results from their implementation at the end of the 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... cycle. This report does not re-visit the assessments for “VerifiabilityOGP commitments should be clear and specific enough to enable measurement of their progress. Verifiable commitments include specific activities that can be monitored. Following an action plan’s subm...,” “RelevanceAccording to the OGP Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should include a clear open government lens. Specifically, they should advance at least one of the OGP values: transparency, citizen partic...” or “Potential Impact.” The IRM assesses those three indicators in IRM Design Reports. For more details on each indicator, please see Annex I in this report.

General Highlights and Results

Germany’s second action plan included 14 commitments. Two commitments were completed, eight were completed to a substantial degree, and four had limited completion. In the first action plan (2017-2019), all 15 commitments were either fully or substantially completed.^[2] The high level of implementation during the first action plan was attributed to the fact that many commitments were derived from existing work plans. The completed commitments of the second action plan focused on time-bound participation processes and gathering public inputs for policy development.

Some commitments with substantial completion included improvements to pre-existing technologies and participation formats (Commitments 2, 10, and 13). Others implemented novel initiatives such as laboratories for open government practices (Commitment 1), publishing archival information for the first time (Commitment 2), developing a federal open data strategy and setting up exchanges around open data (Commitment 6) and creating an open source repository in Schleswig-Holstein (Commitment 14). Factors that limited progress for other commitments included unforeseen developments regarding the definition and maintenance of data standards in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) (Commitment 10), and changes of responsibility (Commitment 4). Commitment 12 on strengthening data sovereignty in NRW was classified as noteworthy in the Design Report but had limited completion within the action plan’s timeframe. This may have been due to the organizational, legal, and technical complexity of the topic (data sovereignty) as well as the absence of best practices for establishing data-sharing mechanisms in German municipalities.[3]

Several commitments led to tangible results in 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 civic participation. 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... 2 resulted in the publication of the main archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, laying a foundation for online access to the archive. Commitment 3 led to the participatory development and implementation of the Federal youthRecognizing that investing in youth means investing in a better future, OGP participating governments are creating meaningful opportunities for youth to participate in government processes. Technical ... strategy whose priorities shall inform future policies. In addition, Commitment 13 saw significant increases in the number of available opportunities and continued citizen engagement in the Free State of Saxony’s participation portal. Commitment 8 led to practical improvements to regulations on pension policies and parental allowances. Lastly, Commitment 5 brought about an increase of published International AidMore and better information about aid helps partner countries and donor institutions plan and manage aid resources more effectively, parliaments and civil society to hold governments accountable for t... Transparency Initiative (IATI), as well as a revision of data publication practices, which could improve the accessibility and usability of foreign aid data.

Germany’s next action plan (2021-2023) builds on some of the successes in open data and civic participation from the second plan. It includes a commitment to bring together civil society and government to regularly discuss how to improve open data in Germany, which builds on Commitment 6 in the second plan.^[4] Furthermore, the federal open data strategy under Commitment 6 in the second action plan helped prepare open data priorities covered in the next plan.^[5] The continued involvement of Länder (federal states) in Germany’s next action plan is also a positive development. For example, NRW will launch a state-wide participation portal, modeled after Saxony’s portal under Commitment 13 in the second plan.^[6]

COVID-19 Pandemic impact on implementation

The COVID-19 pandemic primarily impacted the implementation of commitments that revolved around on-site participation formats, methods, and spaces. Some lead institutions either delayed the implementation of certain aspects of their commitments or turned to online formats. Commitment 1 on regional open government laboratories moved networking activities online. Commitment 3, which revolved primarily around events to solicit feedback from young people on the Federal youth strategy, was moved online. The events made use of online workshops, live chats, as well as public documentation of the discussions and responses by the Federal Government to the topics and strategies developed during the event. For Commitment 10, NRW postponed its plan to create Land government space for collaboration between administrations, businesses, and the public, and instead developed digital exchange formats.

Two initiatives are noteworthy examples of collaborations between the federal government, businesses, and civil society. Germany’s contact tracing app “Corona-Warn App” was developed to publish its source code for public collaboration on GitHub.^[7] The open development process of the app was generally considered a success,^[8] but some remarked that updates and public engagement should have been maintained more proactively after launch.^[9] Another noteworthy project is the initiative #WirVsVirus (We Versus the Virus)[10] which organized a hackathon and a funding and support program for projects to address the crisis. It was initiated by Tech4Germany, Prototype Fund, Impact Hub Berlin, ProjectTogether, SEND e.V., Initiative D21 and Code for Germany, and implemented by the Federal Chancellery on an ad hoc basis. The hackathons resulted in 51 projects that provided usable solutions to address the pandemic. An assessment by researchers at Hertie School concluded that while the initiative offered potential solutions for the pandemic, it also indicated the need to further develop supporting conditions for open innovation.^[11] The initiative was followed by the country-wide “UpdateDeutschland” campaign.[12]

[1] For more information, see: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/process/accountability/about-the-irm/irm-refresh/

[2] Open Government Partnership, Germany Implementation Report 2017-2019, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/germany-implementation-report-2017-2019/

[3] According to the government of North Rhine-Westphalia, guidelines on best practices will be completed in the second quarter of 2022, after the implementation period. (Information provided to the IRM by the Federal Chancellery during the pre-publication review of this report, 1 June 2022.

[4] Open Government Partnership, Promotion of knowledge-sharing in the open data environment, 2021, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/germany/commitments/DE0035/

[5] See Open Government Partnership, Continued development and enhancement of the government data information platform (VIP), 2021, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/germany/commitments/DE0034/ and Open Government Partnership, Standards-based simplification of business access to public procurement, 2021, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/germany/commitments/DE0040/

[6] Open Government Partnership, North Rhine-Westphalia II, Online approaches to increase public participation, 2021, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/germany/commitments/DE0043/

[7] Germany’s Corona-Warn-App, Overview, https://github.com/corona-warn-app

[8] Netzpolitik.org, A lot of things still done right, 15 June 2020, https://netzpolitik.org/2020/vieles-doch-noch-richtig-gemacht/

[9] Netzpolitik.org, Then you somehow lost interest, 16 April 2021, https://netzpolitik.org/2021/bilanz-der-corona-warn-app-dann-hat-man-irgendwie-das-interesse-verloren/

[10] WirVsVirus (We Versus the Virus) https://wirvsvirus.org/

[11] Hertie School, New policy brief evaluates how Open Social Innovation can expedite solutions to urgent public policy problems, 10 March 2021, https://www.hertie-school.org/en/news/detail/content/new-policy-brief-evaluates-how-open-social-innovation-can-expedite-solutions-to-urgent-public-policy-problems

[12] UpdateDeutschland, https://updatedeutschland.org/.