Supporting Implementation through the OGP Multi-Donor Trust Fund

We are pleased to announce the results of the OGP Multi-Donor Trust Fund’s (MDTF) recently concluded Request for Expressions of Interest for activities to support the implementation of OGP commitments. 

The objective of these awards is to support activities that help to bridge and address implementation gaps of potentially impactful commitments in OGP action plans. The awards will help government leaders and civil society stakeholders to identify and prioritize problems, invest in resilient coalitions, find the right technical and adaptive solutions, and build capacity to overcome obstacles and achieve results, and can potentially be scaled up through larger government and nongovernment actions. For more information on the expression of interest process and selection criteria, see here.

The MDTF has selected government implementing agencies from the following countries and localities as conditional awardees:

• Burkina Faso – Citizen Engagement in the Delivery of Public Services (Commitment BF0005)
• Mongolia – Improving Monitoring Mechanisms for Effective Public Resources Management (Commitment MN0023 and forthcoming commitment in 2019-2021 Action Plan)
• Nigeria – Creation of a Beneficial Ownership Register (Commitment NG0006)
• Panama – Open Contracting in the Transport Sector (Commitment PA0028)
• Sekondi Takoradi, Ghana – Citizen Engagement in the Delivery of Public Sanitation Services (Commitment SEK0002)

The awardees will receive a grant for up to $500,000 to support the successful implementation of these commitments over a period of two years.

The OGP MDTF Council conditionally endorsed these grants contingent on:

• Constructive collaboration between the agency implementing the commitment, the OGP Point of Contact, the World Bank and the OGP Support Unit to assess and discuss the details of what is needed to support the technical implementation of the commitment.
• Additional due diligence by the World Bank’s Financial Management, Procurement and Environmental and Social Safeguards teams to further assess the readiness, risks and instill mitigation measures for a successful implementation.

Only countries with implementing agencies that meet the standards for grant recipients and constructively engage with the World Bank and OGP Support Unit will sign a grant agreement to receive funds from this MDTF. Further, potential recipients must continue to act consistent with the OGP principles, including, for example, the timely submission of a new action plan before the deadline.

The conditional awardees will now begin the project preparation stage, in which they will work collaboratively with the MDTF Implementation Team to conduct a thorough problem identification, fine tune the reform objectives, enhance the quality of proposed outcomes, and finalize their implementation plans.