Greece Design Report 2019-2021

Greece’s fourth 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... focuses only on publishing open datasets from a variety of government ministries and agencies. The development of the action plan, which coincided with the challenging pre-election environment, provided limited opportunities for civil society and public engagement and as such, Greece acted contrary to the OGP process. The next action plan would benefit from a more collaborative process and a plan which addresses public procurementTransparency in the procurement process can help combat corruption and waste that plagues a significant portion of public procurement budgets globally. Technical specifications: Commitments that aim t... 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, whistleblower protection, and a coherent national 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... strategy.

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) is a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive, responsive, and accountable. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... monitors all action plans to ensure governments follow through on commitments. Greece joined OGP in 2011. Since, Greece has implemented three action plans. This report evaluates the design of Greece’s fourth action plan.

General overview of action plan

The development of the fourth action plan took place during the politically challenging first months of 2019, a period which culminated in early general electionsImproving transparency in elections and maintaining the independence of electoral commissions is vital for promoting trust in the electoral system, preventing electoral fraud, and upholding the democr... and subsequent change of government after the action plan was adopted. The Ministry of Administrative Reconstruction (MAR) led the OGP process for the development of the fourth action plan, although responsibility moved to the Ministry of Digital GovernanceAs evolving technologies present new opportunities for governments and citizens to advance openness and accountability, OGP participating governments are working to create policies that deal with the ... after the July 2019 general election.

The action plan development process provided limited opportunities for civil society and public engagement, particularly compared to the previous development process for the third action plan. The process lacked a multistakeholder forum despite being an IRM recommendation, meaningful opportunities for the public and civil society to propose or shape commitments, or ongoing dialogue between government and civil society. Greece’s process to develop the action plan was coded as ‘consult’, and therefore the country acted contrary to the OGP process.

The absence of meaningful multistakeholder consultation is reflected in the commitments which do not reflect priorities other than publishing open data. The action plan promises to publish government-owned datasets in various sectors, including educationAccountability within the public education system is key to improving outcomes and attainment, and accountability is nearly impossible without transparent policies and opportunities for participation ..., agriculture, defense and environment. However, in contrast to the previous plans, it falls short of proposing other measures and does not address broader challenges ensuring transparency and public engagement in decision-making. It also did not incorporate recommendations from the previous IRM report, to improve the commitments by ensuring they are problem-oriented and focusing on improving citizens’ lives.

The next action plan could therefore introduce commitments in areas that have been identified to be a priority by the civil society. These include public procurement transparency (particularly in relation to COVID-19 emergency procurements), whistleblower protection, and developing a national open data strategy in collaboration with civil society, business and citizens.

Table 2. Noteworthy commitments

Recommendations

IRM recommendations aim to inform the development of the next action plan and guide implementation of the current action plan. Please refer to Section V: General Recommendations for more details on each of the below recommendations.

Table 3. Five KEY IRM Recommendations