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In joining the Open Government Partnership (OGP), governments have been going on record in support of more open, participatory and accountable public institutions. To date, 55 governments have agreed to develop national action plans, with civil society input and monitoring…

British professional politicians are seen as excessively short term in outlook, secretive by nature and arguably unfit for making and carrying though the big decisions that government requires. They are also viewed as having a hold over public life in…

In South Africa spring is newly sprung, and that energy has been channeled into a comprehensive civil society monitoring plan for the South African Open Government Partnership Commitments. South Africa, as a founding partner, lodged its Action Plan of eight…

The OGP publishes a monthly newsletter. Want to receive it? Please email info [at] opengovpartnership.org with 'subscribe to OGP newsletter' in the header. This month's edition can be found below in English. Please feel free to post your comments at…

This post was co-written with Gilbert Sendugwa, Coordinator and Head of Secretariat for the Africa Freedom of Information Centre, and was originally published on the World Resources Institute's website. The Open Government Partnership (OGP) boasts some pretty lofty and much-needed goals. The global initiative aims to secure…

Last month’s post on how open data is a major factor of economic growth was an important analysis of the wider debate on the impact open data has on governance. Worldwide, businesses and public bodies are unfortunately facing a lack of quality…

The OGP has quickly become the leading global movement for promoting government openness. So it might seem odd to ask whether something as central to openness as the right to information (RTI or freedom of information) is being taken seriously…

TreeMendelBlog.png President Obama launched his term with grand hopes and big initiatives. Of the many promises that he campaigned on, one of them was, of course, that of delivering an unprecedented level of government communication and openness to the American…

Since Croatia applied to join the OGP in 2011 when the then government was more focused on parliamentary elections than on plans for the future, OGP related activities were run by enthusiasts from civil society organisations (CSOs, e.g. GONG ),…

  All UK Government departments produced an open data strategy in June – alongside the Cabinet Office’s Open Data White Paper – pledging themselves to big releases of datasets and innovative open data approaches over the next two years.  Although…