Aggregate Citizens' Feedback on Programs (NG0026)

Brief description:
This commitment seeks to increase the use, synergy and co-ordination of technology-driven applications, portals and platforms that will enhance citizens’ access to government policy process for regular input and monitoring.

General problem:
• Inadequate citizens’ access to programmes and activities of government
• Non-inclusiveness of citizens in the governance process
• Low knowledge of governance activities by citizens
• The apathy of citizens concerning governance issues

Specific OGP issue:
● Accountability and Transparency
● Citizens Participation
● Effectiveness of Public service delivery

Rationale for the commitment:
There is an increased number of citizens using mobile phones to connect with policy makers and engage in government processes. In the first NAP, some platforms have been created by government and citizens groups such as the Citizens’ Budget Portal, Nocopo, Budeshi, Dubawa, Tracka, openbills.ng etc. There is the need to synergise and coordinate the feedback from citizens for effective government response.

Main objective:
To increase the access of citizens to government processes through the use of technology and synergise and co-ordinate citizens feedback to enhance government responsiveness.

Anticipated impact:
Improved service delivery

See action plan for milestone activities

12. Citizen feedback on transparency and accountability programs

Main Objective

“To increase the access of citizens to government processes through the use of technology and synergise and co-ordinate citizens feedback to enhance government responsiveness.”

Milestones

1. To build an OGP portal to aggregate feedback from MDAs and CSOs to help strengthen the feedback process
2. Organise a stakeholders’ platform for building and managing OGP portal
3. Conduct a survey and mapping of technology-based platforms that promote transparency and accountability in CSOs and MDAs.
4. Quarterly analysis of citizens feedback for government attention and response of the government

Editorial Note: For the complete text of this commitment, please see Nigeria’s action plan at https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/nigeria-action-plan-2019-2021/

Commitment Analysis

This commitment aims to integrate current platforms for public feedback into a single OGP portal, to inform government decision-making, and expand opportunities for engagement with government MDAs. It is carried forward from Nigeria’s 2017–2019 national action plan. Under the previous action plan, the mapping of MDAs’ technology-based platforms for transparency and accountability was not completed.

This commitment includes four milestones to create an OGP portal in consultation with stakeholders. The basis for the portal’s design is intended to be survey mapping technology-based platforms that promote transparency and accountability in CSOs and MDAs. When asked about what type of information would be included on the OGP portal, the Nigerian Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) responded that it would include information on “government fiscal activities and performance, procurement, legislative activities, elections, audit reports, social intervention, government assets and performance, and government official assets.” ^[145] The scope of this information seems to go beyond the topics OGP covers, and it is not clear whether this portal would be duplicating information already published elsewhere.

According to the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Centre LSD), citizen feedback received through the portal would be directed to the MDAs, and the portal would publish their responses. A stakeholders’ forum of government and CSO representatives would be established from Nigeria’s OGP sectors and would be responsible for monitoring and analyzing the portal and government responses to make necessary improvements. ^[146]  However, IRM could not establish what type of feedback will be sought, how it will be gathered, and what would be the process for sorting and forwarding it to the MDAs.

This commitment is relevant to the OGP values of access to information and civic participation, as it could potentially publish information on the OGP process and provide a tool for public feedback on implementation of OGP commitments. However, based on the interviews with NITDA and Centre LSD, it appears that the plan is to have a portal that goes beyond the OGP process and aggregates information and feedback for all MDAs.

NITDA was assigned the task of building an OGP portal in response to the difficulties of gathering stakeholder feedback during implementation of Nigeria’s previous action plan. ^[147] The government and CSOs have previously developed a number of platforms for citizen feedback or disclosure of government information, such as NOCOPO for public contracts; FGN iapp for sharing government bids, tenders, and vacancies; PEBEC app for submitting feedback on business climate reforms; iMonitor for monitoring budget spending; Budeshi for linking budget and procurement data to public services; and Tracka for tracking implementation of government projects. ^[148] According to NITDA, these platforms suffer from low levels of information sharing due to poor interoperability of the systems and inconsistency of data formats. ^[149] However, in the e-mail correspondence with the IRM, NITDA did not clarify whether the intention of this commitment is to provide the links to these portals on the OGP portal or to integrate the functions of the existing portals into the OGP portal. The latter would be a technologically complex undertaking without clear benefits for increasing access or usability of information currently housed in these portals. Overall, user uptake of the existing platforms has been challenging. A TIC TeC study shows low levels of civic tech tool impact and engagement in Nigeria, which is primarily due to a misunderstanding of the benefits of tools. ^[150] Additional barriers to engagement include lack of internet access and low literacy, ^[151] which would affect the OGP portal as well.

In the implementation of this commitment, the IRM recommends focusing on building and launching a dedicated OGP website that would host information on the OGP process and implementation of commitments. The website needs to include information such as the composition of OGP’s National Steering Committee, meeting minutes, and major decisions made and information on the development of the action plan, including suggestions received and feedback provided by the OGP Secretariat and the NSC. To ensure continued engagement of civil society and the public throughout implementation of the action plan, the website needs to provide up-to-date information on the implementation of commitments and offer commenting options for the public.

Commitment 12. Citizen feedback on transparency and accountability programs

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● Potential Impact: Minor

● Completion: Not started

● Did it open government? No early results to report yet

This commitment was carried over from the 2017 action plan and aims to integrate existing public feedback platforms into one OGP portal where citizens can inform government decision-making. In particular, the platform was envisioned to consolidate channels for citizens to communicate with MDAs. The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) stated that a lack of funds prevented development of the portal but that provisions have been made for it in the future. NITDA also noted other ongoing efforts, such as advancing open data and creating an enabling environment for government and civil society to develop technology platforms that advance transparency and accountability. [206]