Kenya and Blair Glencorse to Lead International Partnership on Open Government

The OGP Global Summit marks the conclusion of Estonia and Anabel Cruz’s terms as Co-Chairs of the OGP Steering Committee. During their one-year chairship, both parties provided a strategic direction for the Partnership as it embarked on creating and implementing OGP’s five-year strategy to further democratic values and norms, specifically in fighting corruption, supporting civic freedoms, and promoting better digital governance. 

“When governments and civil society organizations work together to address challenges they create solutions that are more ambitious, and results for citizens are noticeably stronger,” said Cruz. “I am proud to have led the Partnership along with the Government of Estonia at a crucial time for democracies everywhere and I look forward to the Steering Committee’s new leadership.” 

Estonia and Cruz will be succeeded by the Government of Kenya and Blair Glencorse, Co-CEO of Accountability Lab. They will chair the OGP Steering Committee for one year starting on October 1, 2023. 

The Government of Kenya noted the country’s new role to steer the Partnership offers opportunities to advance the open government agenda. “As we embark on this new role, we also know that we must deepen democracy in our regions, as these global gatherings must be nuanced by regional and local contexts. In this regard, we will be hosting an OGP Regional meeting and Ministerial Retreat at the same time next year.”

The Government of Spain will succeed Kenya in 2024.

2023 Open Government Awards 

The open government community recognized the reformers from around the world who have transformed their communities through initiatives on civic space, inclusive participation, anti-corruption, digital advancements, climate change, justice, and government integration. See the full list of winners here. 

Resources Pledged to Open Government 

At the Summit, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships and OGP will sign a contract to launch the Partnership for Democracy and Accountability. The EU will contribute €3M EUR over the course of 40 months (starting in July 2023) to support open government efforts in Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Colombia, Honduras, Indonesia and the Philippines. With the EU’s support, OGP will provide deeper support to this set of target countries to enable open government reforms, particularly on anti-corruption and accountability, gender, youth and inclusion, and civic space and participation. It will allow us to kickstart approaches flowing from the new strategy. 

“Reformers in government and civil society rely on the support from platforms like OGP and the EU to strengthen the open government agendas in their countries,” said Sanjay Pradhan, CEO of the Open Government Partnership. We are very happy to be partnering with the EU to launch this program today to help open government champions to scale up their reforms and meet the challenges that they face. We look forward to our continued collaboration with the European Union and other partners to make this a reality,” said Pradhan.

United Kingdom (FCDO)

With the support of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) of £2.5 GBP over 18 months, OGP will support country reformers working on digital governance issues, help drive ambition and catalyze emerging norms on digital governance, and spotlight exceptional and ambitious reforms to build a broader coalition of actors working towards building open, accountable, and inclusive digital innovations. In partnership with FCDO, OGP will also work to boost the impact of commitments made on the global stage by linking them to concrete country-level action and reforms. 

UNITED STATES (USAID)

Grant: 

With the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) of $3.25M USD over three years (starting in September 2023), OGP will expand and enhance the implementation of critical democracy reforms at the country level, particularly to accelerate action against corruption. OGP will support USAID’s efforts in combatting transnational corruption across sectors, particularly during pivotal windows of opportunity for reform. OGP will also help to advance the implementation of Summit for Democracy commitments, and bolster USAID’s ability to forge new partnerships and coalitions to spur and sustain anti-corruption progress.

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING

As a founding member of the Open Government Partnership, the United States has long recognized that supporting the implementation of open government reforms directly aligns with US national security and democracy priorities. USAID and OGP will sign a new Memorandum of Understanding – the first major strategic partnership since the creation of USAID’s new Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Governance – identifies shared strategic goal of pursuing strategies, programs, projects and ideas to reinforce open and accountable governance, counter corruption and safeguard democracy.