Developing Open Parliament Plan (GH0040)

Problem to be addressed  The Ghana Parliament has been an active member of the Global Open Parliament Partnership Initiative but has never submitted commitments in any of the previous action plans and now feels the need to contribute to the National Action Plan.

The commitment  The Ghana Parliament shall effectively participate in the OGP Ghana activities by December 2022

Contribution of commitment to solving problem  This commitment will strengthen Ghana Parliament’s active engagement with the Global Open Parliament Partnership.

Relevance of commitment to OGP values ● Commitment will bring the Ghana Parliament in line with the Ghana OGPs commitments on the principles of accountability, transparency, citizen’s participation and the people’s right to know

Additional information

Milestone Activity with a verifiable deliverable Start Date: End Date:  Adopt an Open Parliament Action Plan by the end of Nov. 2021 June 2023 Republic of Ghana - Open Government Partnership - NAP-4 18 December 2022 to ensure that the Open Government values of transparency, accountability, citizens participation are integrated into Parliamentary work and practices  Establish an OGP caucus in the House by the end of 2022 to create space for political dialogue on Open governance. Nov. 2021 June 2023

Action Plan Review

Commitment 13. Develop an Open Parliament Plan

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● Potential for results: Modest

(The Parliament of Ghana, PNAfrica, Center for Democratic Development (CDD), Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Penplusbyte and Odikro).

For a complete description of commitment 13 see: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Ghana_Action-Plan_2021-2023.pdf

Context and objectives

The Parliament of Ghana, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), and Parliamentary Network Africa (PNAfrica) initially sought to develop an Open Parliament Plan in addition to Ghana's national OGP action plan. However, the closure of WFD’s Ghana office in 2020 impacted the funding and assistance available for the project. As a result, members of parliament on the national OGP Steering Committee and civil society partners decided to include an open parliament commitment within the national action plan. [29]

Prior to this commitment, the Parliament of Ghana has not taken a central role in the implementation of open government reforms beyond the passage of legislation. The Parliament's lack of ownership over proposed reforms has stalled implementation of some previous commitments. While members of Parliament have participated in the OGP Steering Committee since its inception, they have largely engaged in a personal capacity. [30] Therefore, this commitment aims to institutionalize the Parliament’s commitment to open government values through the development of an Open Parliament Plan (milestone 1) and multistakeholder Parliamentary Open Government Steering Committee (milestone 2). [31]

Potential for results: Modest

This commitment has modest potential to strengthen the Parliament’s role in the advancement of open government reforms in Ghana. Parliaments can advance open government reform through the passage, funding, and monitoring of relevant legislation as well as strengthening transparency, participation, and accountability within parliamentary institutions and processes. [32] Full implementation of this commitment could make the Parliament of Ghana more transparent and accessible to citizens. It could also provide an opportunity to advance the passage and funding of open government legislation.

The Parliament of Ghana has passed important legislation to advance open government in recent years. However, the passage of these acts has been delayed, such as the Access to Information Act after decades of advocacy or the Conduct of Public Officers Bill (commitment 4), which is yet to be passed. [33] Therefore, the consolidation of a steering committee and open parliament plan could facilitate legislative action to support commitments in this action plan. In particular, the Parliament could standardize fees for access to information requests. Positively, a meeting was held discuss how the Parliament and national OGP Steering Committee will work together to monitor implementation of commitments. [34]

Besides the passage of legislation, the parliament has undertaken initial steps to increase transparency and civic participation in parliamentary processes. This includes the creation of an “electronic Parliament” system that allows citizens to send electronic petitions or memorandums to Parliament. [35] However, there remains opportunity to further strengthen the petition and memorandum process as well as increase the proactive release of information around parliamentary activities, as highlighted in Ghana's previous IRM Implementation Report. [36] The development of an Open Parliament Plan provides a channel to partner with civil society and identify strategic opportunities to institutionalize transparency, participation, and accountability. Samuel Obeng of Parliamentary Network Africa notes that there also remains significant opportunity to familiarize parliamentarians with the concept of open government and Parliament's role in Ghana's OGP processes. [37]

This commitment intends to establish an OGP Caucus (also referred to an Open Parliament Steering Committee) in the House by the end of 2022. In March 2020, an Open Parliament Task Team comprised of parliamentary staff met with civil society. At this meeting, it was determined that a multistakeholder group with 10 representatives each from parliament and civil society should be established. [38] This Steering Committee is likely to include organizations already involved in parliamentary reform, such as the Ghana Network of Parliamentary Monitoring Civil Society Organizations. [39] Hon. Emmanuel Kwasi Bedzrah notes that it will take time to engage civil society organizations that are not already involved. [40] The creation of the Steering Committee was stalled due to COVID-19, and at the time of writing, civil society had not received invitations to join the committee. Samuel Obeng notes that the administrative heads of parliament need to provide clearance to the Task Team to commence the co-creation process. [41]

As written, this commitment has a modest potential to institutionalize open government in the Parliament of Ghana through development of an Open Parliament Plan and Steering Committee.

A lack of specificity in the commitment text related to the development process, potential content, and objectives of the plan prevents determination of whether the reform might contribute to substantial open government results. Additionally, the current commitment only foresees developing and not implementing the plan.

However, this commitment may prove to have substantial results in the longer term if (i) the plan is co-created with opportunities for broad public input so that it reflects priorities of both parliament and civil society, (ii) the Open Parliament Plan leads to a new climate that strengthens transparency, civic participation, and public accountability in Parliament. Moreover, the establishment of an Open Parliament Steering Committee could greatly facilitate the passage of legislation to advance other commitments in the action plan and formally institutionalize civil society-parliament collaboration.

An ambitious Open Parliament Plan would aim to strengthen and institutionalize new modes of engagement between citizens and Parliament. A strong plan would include commitments with specific and verifiable activities that directly contribute to greater transparency, civic participation, and public accountability. [42] For example, the plan could include mechanisms to hear from citizens and civil society between electoral cycles, ^[43] or create opportunities for the public to learn about, contribute to, influence, and track the work of Parliament. [44] These commitments should be developed in close collaboration with civil society, in which CSOs’ ideas are considered and responded to.

Opportunities, challenges, and recommendations during implementation

This commitment benefits from civil society support and the work of members of Parliament on the national OGP Steering Committee to build buy-in from Parliament as a whole. Promisingly, the Open Parliament Task Team includes senior members of the Parliamentary Service staff and the First Deputy Speaker as the Lead on Open Parliament. Moreover, the Parliament of Ghana and the current Speaker of Parliament have a history of working with civil society. [45] The Parliament has also stated its intention to provide financial support for the commitments made in the Open Parliament Plan. [46] Therefore, the initial scaffolding for a co-creation process is in place, provided that Parliament takes the crucial next step of engaging civil society to establish the multistakeholder forum. 

Keeping open government on the Parliament's full docket will be a central challenge to this commitment. [47] Current tensions in Parliament could distract from open parliament efforts. [48] However, the lack of a parliamentary majority could also provide for a strong accountability mechanism in which the opposition party ensures that open parliament commitments make progress. Given the context, implementers should seek to build cross-party support for open parliament reforms. To consolidate efforts, the Speaker of Parliament could incorporate the open parliament co-creation process into planned citizen outreach efforts as part of bringing Parliament closer to the people. Parliament should also make use of civil society partners to share the workload. Finally, the Open Parliament Steering Committee should strategically consider the political, financial, and technical context when drafting open parliament commitments. [49]

Samuel Obeng noted several possible policy areas for open parliament commitments including: adopting policies on parliamentary transparency; moving towards recording and publishing member of Parliaments' votes; publishing the parliamentary budget and expenditures; and improving the code of conduct regime for members and parliamentary staff. He also recommended that the ongoing review process on the Standing Orders of Parliament produces a final document that makes parliamentary work more inclusive and encourages citizen participation. [50]

As open parliament commitments are the second fastest growing area within the OGP, [51] learnings from other countries can help guide design and implementation of the plan. Ghana can look to examples of reforms such as the adoption of a parliamentary Code of Conduct in Georgia; a new framework for asset declaration by members of Parliament in Argentina; and a platform that enables citizens to track Parliament's Sustainable Development Goals implementation in Paraguay. ^[52] See the Open Parliament Fact Sheet for more examples of possible reforms to open government. [53]

When co-creating the action plan and designing commitments, the IRM recommends that implementers consider the following recommendations:

● Consider enabling civil society to develop a fair and transparent selection process for civil society representation on the Steering Committee. Actively seek opportunities to involve civil society beyond those who typically engage in parliamentary reform.

● Conduct a ‘legislative scan’ of national OGP commitments to encourage dialogue with implementing institutions and align activities to strengthen the Parliament’s role in supporting national open government reforms, such as commitments 2, 4 and 12. ^[54]

● Provide procedural transparency around the development and implementation of the action plan including advanced notice of opportunities for the public to provide input and information how this feedback was considered and incorporated into the plan. [55]

● Design milestones with specific and verifiable activities to support accurate monitoring and evaluation. Design commitments with a clear statement of the policy problem and how implementation of the commitment will begin to address this problem.

● Designate a moment in the design process to review all draft commitments and ensure a clear connection to open government values. For each commitment, clearly state how implementation will contribute to (i) the release of government-held information to the public, (ii) strengthen or create opportunities for the public to participate in parliamentary processes, and (iii) strengthen or create opportunities for the public to hold officials to account.

Results Report

Commitment 13. Develop an Open Parliament Plan

The Parliament of Ghana has been actively engaged in Ghana’s OGP process across the previous three action plans. This commitment continues and expands on reforms to open parliament included in the previous action plan. ^[116] Specifically, this commitment sought to strengthen parliament’s role in Ghana’s open government movement through the formation of an open government parliamentary caucus and the development of an open parliament action plan.

None of the two milestones, as written, were completed within the action plan period. A draft Open Parliament action plan was developed, but not yet completed, and the parliamentary caucus was established, but outside the action plan assessment period. ^[117] However, the development process of the draft action plan brought together actors from parliament (staff and members of parliament), CSOs and the national OGP secretariat, with some CSOs participating as resource persons. ^[118] In May and June of 2022, the Ghana Parliamentary Monitoring Organizations (PMO) Network, alongside CSOs, actively participated in the implementation of the Open Parliament Index (OPI), ^[119] resulting in Ghana achieving the top rank in the OPI. This evaluation significantly influenced the formulation of the draft Open Parliament Action Plan. The Parliamentary Network published in its January 2024 bulletin ^[120] that network members (CSOs) collaborated with the Parliament of Ghana in co-creating the draft Open Parliament Action Plan, noting that the action plan included some of the gaps identified in the OPI. Mr Arye further explained that three virtual meetings were convened to facilitate dialogue between government officials and CSO representatives for the review of the action plan’s draft. CSOs engaged in thematic discussions and presentations, contributing to the development of commitments.

To further strengthen citizen engagement, parliament established a Citizens’ Bureau ^{[121] [122] [123]} as an office in the Ghanaian Parliament that serves to promote interactions and information exchanges between the parliament and CSOs, particularly the sharing of public information from the parliament with CSOs and the dissemination of research projects carried out by CSOs and think tanks to parliamentarians and members of the legislature to improve their work. Equally, the Bureau is charged with the responsibility of developing, carrying out, and reporting on Open Parliament Initiatives. ^[124] According to Hon Emmanuel Bedzrah (member of parliament), and Mr Prosper Hoetu (Citizens’ Bureau, Ghana Parliament), ^[125] parliament has made positive steps to promote the open government values of transparency, accountability, and citizen participation. Moreover, according to BugdiT’s Ghana ^[126] blog publication, the Citizens’ Bureau signifies a monumental leap toward empowering its citizens as active participants in the nation’s democratic processes. It explains that the Bureau bridges the gap between the government and its people by providing a dedicated platform for engagement and information sharing, amplifying Ghanaians’ collective voice and ensuring their interests are intricately woven into the fabric of legislative decisions, and reducing the growing mistrust between citizens and the government. ^[127]

Whereas the parliamentary action plan is not yet approved, the draft document focuses on three key areas of transparency and civic engagement, that is, (i) making parliamentary information public through real-time uploads and updates, (ii) enhancing access and consumerability of the information through searchable formats and query friendly mechanisms, and (iii) expanding opportunities for civic engagement. This commitment achieved moderate results due to the limited progress within the action plan period. However, this reform is continued in Ghana’s next action plan and may achieve greater results in the longer term.