OGP Summit For Democracy Resources

In December 2021, the United States government convened the first Summit for Democracy (S4D), where more than 50 governments – including 43 member countries of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) – made more than 800 commitments to strengthen democracy, fight corruption, and promote human rights.

OGP can help to implement S4D commitments, because it allows governments to design, implement, and track commitments with civil society.. Embedding S4D commitments in OGP action plans can ensure that civil society has a voice in advancing reforms and can help drive implementation through monitoring and learning.

This page lists relevant OGP resources, such as articles, research publications, and events, including materials published in OGP’s role as co-lead of the S4D Financial Transparency and Integrity Cohort with the US government and the Brookings Institution. Additional S4D-related resources can be found on the Summit for Democracy portal, led by International IDEA.

Research publications

• Aligning Open Government Commitments (2023): This analysis reviews S4D commitments made by OGP countries at the first Summit to draw lessons that may inform future S4D programming. The analysis looks at the co-creation and monitoring of S4D commitments and explores how many countries are using the OGP process to advance S4D commitments.
• Open Government Approaches in S4D Commitments (2022): This analysis looks at S4D commitments made at the first Summit, their relevance to open government values, their areas of focus, and how they compare to OGP commitments. Topics covered include anti-corruption, civic space, justice, digital governance, and inclusion.

Financial Transparency and Integrity Cohort Documents

• Pledge and Call to Action (2023): In this document, Cohort members identify and pledge to address priority anti-corruption areas where concerted, collaborative action, and exchange can catalyze a profound shift toward financial transparency, accountability, integrity, and inclusion.
• Considerations on the Implementation of Beneficial Ownership Transparency (2023): Based on a Cohort-led peer exchange event in October 2022, this document includes important considerations—including key policy questions—for governments and civil society to consider in their implementation of beneficial ownership transparency reforms.

Fact sheets

• State of Anti-Corruption Reforms (2022): This fact sheet produced by the OGP Support Unit looks at commitments made to advance anti-corruption reforms through both the OGP and S4D processes, with a focus on members of the S4D Financial Transparency and Integrity Cohort.

Databases and templates

• OGP S4D Commitment Database (2022): This database includes all S4D commitments submitted in writing. Each commitment is categorized based on its policy area relevance, international or domestic focus, and relevance to open government values.
• Templates for S4D commitments (2022): The OGP Support Unit helped to create templates for 1) making new S4D commitments and 2) reporting progress on past commitments. S4D participating governments are encouraged to use these templates to ensure consistency and facilitate commitment tracking.

Events

• Summit for Democracy: From Words to Action (2022): This Democracy Debate — convened by the Open Governance Network for Europe, Carnegie Europe, and the European Partnership for Democracy — focuses on whether the Summit for Democracy can deliver. At the debate, OGP argues that participants need to focus on implementation, accountability, and engaging media, civil society, and business.
• Towards a Summit for Democracy (2021): The Permanent Secretariat of the Community of Democracies (PSCD), in cooperation with International IDEA and OGP, convened this meeting to share lessons learned on how to support democracy worldwide. The conversation identified challenges and opportunities for advancing democracy, including how to uphold basic democratic practices.

Articles

• Inflection point: Making the Summit for Democracy matter at the IACC (2022):This article by the OGP Support Unit—in collaboration with the Brookings Institution—discusses how S4D commitments can advance anti-corruption efforts, specifically around political finance, asset disclosure, and beneficial ownership transparency.
• One Month to Make 2021 Democracy and Open Government Summits Count (2021): This article summarizes an OGP-hosted discussion with government and civil society reformers on how to maximize the Summit for Democracy. Recommendations include influencing speeches, co-creating commitments with civil society, and building democratic resilience at home and abroad.
• Four Lessons We Learned from the London Anti-Corruption Summit (2021): In this article, the OGP Support Unit draws lessons from a global summit similar to the Summit for Democracy: the 2016 Anti-Corruption Summit. Lessons include going beyond Summit pledges alone, embedding Summit pledges into national implementation plans, focusing on high-impact areas of reform, and ensuring accountability for implementation.