Voting is now closed. Thanks to all who participated in the 2021 OGP Impact Awards, and congratulations to our winners!
Explore all 2021 entries categorized by Theme
| Theme | Commitment Title | Year | Region | More |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Access to information | Argentina | Active Transparency Index Argentina’s Active Transparency Index is a methodology co-designed by government and civil society to measure and monitor compliance of the active transparency obligations of public institutions. An interactive dashboard showcases each institutions’ performance and ranks them according to compliance, thus fostering access to information and public accountability. The Index is a valuable tool that can be scaled and implemented at the regional and global level. |
2019 | Americas | Learn more |
| Access to information | Nariño, Colombia | Open Coffee Production Under the framework of their open government policy, the Government of Nariño, Colombia has strengthened citizen participation, transparency, and local rural development through a collaborative co-creation process between civil society and government institutions. They have collaborated with over 20 brands of specialty coffee from growers across different municipalities of Nariño, a process which will positively impact over 600 people in the Department of Nariño. |
2019 | Americas | Learn more |
| Access to information | Republic of Moldova | Government Data Portal The Government Data Portal was developed to ensure a qualitative and integrated experience for accessing and using data produced by public institutions. This commitment led to several national debates around the use and value of data across different sectors, incentivized various stakeholders to pay more attention to data in their interventions, allowed for more partnerships to emerge around the collection, and also improved monitoring/evaluation and learning. |
2012 | Europe | Learn more |
| Anti-corruption | Nigeria | Beneficial Ownership Transparency Opacity in Nigeria’s extractives sector has decimated communities, destroyed lives and led to the rise of militancy in oil producing regions. The Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) was passed in 2020 – making it mandatory to disclose persons with significant control of companies in a register of beneficial owners to enhance corporate accountability and transparency. It will enable public authorities to track the proceeds of corruption and redirect the resources for national benefit. |
2017 | Africa & Middle East | Learn more |
| E-government | Albania | E-Albania Only 1% of public services in Albania were online in 2013. Today citizens receive 95% of public services online through the platform e-albania.al, and over 2 million citizens and businesses are registered. Everyone receives personal documents such as civil status certificates, insurance attestations, and utility payments in real-time Businesses access more than 300 services on the platform, including their initial registration, applications for permits and licenses, and forms for submitting taxes and balance sheets. This digital revolution enabled us to spare citizens and businesses more than 500 years of time and save 4 million euros in the past three years. |
2016 | Europe | Learn more |
| E-government | Panama | Hotline 311 Using the 311 complaints hotline, the government can respond to the needs of citizens in an easy, fast, and confidential way to address cases of corruption in public services throughout Panamá. The authorities subsequently used the information to develop corrective measures and have seen the numbers of resolved cases rise dramatically. In 2018, citizens submitted more than one million cases via phone calls, mobile app submissions and other convenient methods, and the government responded and resolved 90% of them. |
2015 | Americas | Learn more |
| E-government | Serbia | Public Services on ePAPER ePAPER: where all public services are at one place ‘“ optimized, sustainable, accessible and easy to use! Thanks to the collaboration between the public and private sector, public services were modernized through optimization of 235 administrative procedures, resulting in annual savings for businesses of €33 million. 2,070 public services have been transformed and made accessible and easy to use at one place: rap.euprava.gov.rs. The sustainability of the reform has been ensured by the Law on the Register of Administrative Procedures adopted in 2021. Check it out! |
2018 | Europe | Learn more |
| Education | Armenia | E-edu Reform E-edu reform is a unified education management system that ensures admission, grading, and assessment are online. It reduces corruption risks and mismanagement by school principals, increases the involvement of public councils, and allows for active parent monitoring. When we pushed the panic button of COVID in Armenia, school education became the most agile system to adapt to the lockdown reality. Schooling shifted to a virtual space within 3 days, ensuring continuity of public education for more than 80% of students. We aimed for increased accountability of the education service planning for peace and got a bonus of resilient schooling during the war and the pandemic! |
2018 | Asia Pacific | Learn more |
| Education | Brazil | Innovations in Basic Education The Programa de Inovação Educação Conectada (Piec) supports universal access to high-speed internet and promotes the use of digital technology in basic education. The Federal District, 26 states and 5,297 municipalities have joined the program, and over 28 million students have benefited. Satellite connection was implemented in 8,000 rural schools; and funds transferred for ground-based broadband connectivity in 70,000 urban schools. Students and education professionals can access a diversity of over 321,000 digital educational resources and share resources and user experiences. Due to its success, Piec was passed into law in 2021. |
2016 | Americas | Learn more |
| Fiscal openness | South Africa | Open Budgeting Open budgeting is a flagship commitment in South Africa’s OGP action plan and has continually reinforced accountability to citizens. Budget allocation to vulnerable groups, especially women and people with disabilities has improved significantly. Access to the Budget Office staff in the National Treasury has ensured that civil society can access quality information on the spending trends. In the 2017 and 2019 Open Budget Indexes, South Africa tied with New Zealand for having the most transparent budget in the world. |
2016 | Africa & Middle East | Learn more |
| Gender | Mexico | Public Care System Mexico conducted a project that highlights the shortcomings of the public care system and how the burden of making up for them falls disproportionately on women. It is part of a broader agenda in the Mexican State to advance gender equality, and Congress is currently discussing the obligation of the State to assume its role as guarantor of the right to care. This commitment was an exceptional case because the government and civil society maintained an effective dynamic of collaboration, dialogue, and co-responsibility, despite the crisis of confidence due to acts of espionage in 2017. |
2016 | Americas | Learn more |
| Infrastructure | South Cotabato, Philippines | Monitoring Public Infrastructure This commitment addresses the perennial problem of quality, delays and slippages in public infrastructure projects. 108 projects have been evaluated involving a bottom-up approach to governance by people in 10 municipalities and 1 city in South Cotabato. Collaborative efforts from the government, CSOs, and the private sector – such as the use of digital technology to accurately monitor and evaluate projects – have ensured that the provincial government makes sound decisions on infrastructure projects. The result is a contented community with high quality projects and high hopes for the government to deliver the best public service. |
2018 | Asia Pacific | Learn more |
| Land Rights & Spatial Planning | Cabo Verde | Re-qualification, Rehabilitation & Accessibility Program The government’s Requalification, Rehabilitation and Accessibility Program (PRRA) finds solutions for Cabo Verde’s challenges in spatial and urban planning. Its innovative procurement procedures targeted small and medium companies to dynamize the local economy, and some projects carried out open civic consultations about intended investments. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the program rehabilitated 13 properties, requalified more than 60 hectares of urban and rural areas, constructed 85 km of clearing roads and rehabilitated more than 2,000 houses. |
2018 | Africa & Middle East | Learn more |
| Land Rights & Spatial Planning | Ukraine | Transparent Sale of Public Assets Three years ago, no one knew how many vacant square meters of public property existed or how to lease them without bribes. Today, an electronic trading system Prozorro.Sale contains information about every asset available for rent and a clear way to bid online. More than 10,000 auctions have been held, generating revenues of more than 37 million USD per year to budgets. It turned abandoned assets into productive ones, opening business access to investment opportunities and allowing civil society organisations to monitor the integrity of the transactions, thereby earning more trust in the privatization process. |
2018 | Europe | Learn more |
| Legislation & Regulation | Israel | National Legislation Database The Israeli National Legislation Database is a free, innovative platform displaying acts, bills, legislative procedure and all of Israel’s legislation history and exporting information via ODATA . It includes innovative tools for Parliament to supervise and monitor government secondary legislation. The clear and accessible display of all acts and legislation history is designed for varied users from professionals to laymen, enhances transparency and enables public involvement. |
2017 | Europe | Learn more |
| Legislation & Regulation | Jordan | Independent National Electoral Commission The Independent National Electoral Commission (IEC) has been vital to democracy in Jordan by ensuring fair and transparent elections, increasing public trust in the process and fostering easier access to information. The IEC also supported the recognition of independent electoral monitoring groups and protected their rights to hold the process accountable. |
2012 | Africa & Middle East | Learn more |
| Lobbying | Chile | Lobby Law The Lobby Law increases transparency in the decision-making process of public administration bodies, including meetings and trips made by public authorities and donations they have received. To implement this, the State Administration had to adopt new practices and processes that would install a culture of openness within public bodies. Today the processes are used by the central administration, local governments, autonomous bodies, public universities, and the Constitutional Convention. 709 public institutions are operating in it, and 496,865 records of meetings have been published so far. |
2014 | Americas | Learn more |
| Marginalized Communities | Austin, United States | Empowering the Homeless in City Governance City contracting for homelessness services did not include input from residents experiencing homelessness. The city created the Austin Homelessness Advisory Council (AHAC) to give people experiencing homeless a role in city governance. The work resulted in the city’s selection of contractors for support services, permanent housing, and transitional housing better suited to the community’s needs. Steve Potter states, ‘As a member of AHAC, I have a voice. I have that connection to city services, city leadership, to actually change things for the people of Austin.’ |
2019 | Americas | Learn more |
| Open Contracting | Honduras | Open Purchases “Open Purchases’ has improved public procurement by bettering government’s communication channels with citizens and promoting citizen action through social oversight. The publication of citizen-friendly data, infographic newsletters, and information portals on the State Contracting and Procurement Regulations Office and Honducompras websites have helped citizens demand accountability. This work has upheld citizen participation by establishing legal reforms that allow for citizens to engage in this oversight. |
2016 | Americas | Learn more |
| Open Contracting | Indonesia | Open E-Procurement Indonesia has successfully developed an open e-procurement system to handle a USD 66 billion procurement budget, unite 650 public authorities and attract over 400,000 businesses, 41 percent of whom are Micro and Small Enterprises. The system saves the government around 12% of the national budget each year, which can be allocated for programs to improve public service delivery. Government and civil society collaborations have led to the development of the Opentender.net platform and the 2021 CIC Regulation which outlines the details of procurement data that should be open to all public institutions. |
2014 | Asia Pacific | Learn more |
| Open Data | Buenos Aires, Argentina | Compras COVID In Buenos Aires, we believe that governments do not have all the answers. That is why we count on collective intelligence and have an inclusive open data policy that allows civil society to contribute innovative ideas to influence public policy. Recently, the publication of 157 new datasets and the organization of 22 activities strengthened citizen engagement and access to information. During the pandemic, data on government procurement was published under the title “Compras COVID”. This resulted in fairer deals, less corruption and more transparency in an unprecedented context that demanded immediate government response. |
2018 | Americas | Learn more |
| Open Data | Czech Republic | Open Data Portal The Open Data Portal (data.gov.cz) is a pillar of the Czech open data ecosystem, offering methodological manuals, recommendations for future open data providers and e-learning for civil servants, academics and NGOs. It is one of the first European portals to implement DCAT-AP 2.0 and is entirely built on open-source and fully reusable. More than 863 civil servants have received training in 32 sessions and 80 workshops so far. |
2016 | Europe | Learn more |
| Open Data | Lithuania | Open Data Portal Lithuania’s open data portal provides businesses, NGOs and citizens with public sector data free of charge. As of March 2021, the portal includes more than 1,150 datasets from 28 public sector institutions, covering sectors such as agriculture, infrastructure, health, business, education, employment, and culture. Lithuania improved its ranking among the EU27+ in the European Data Portal’s Open Data Maturity Report from 24th in 2019 to 11th in 2020, changing from an open data ‘Follower’ to an open data ‘Fast-tracker’. |
2018 | Europe | Learn more |
| Open Data | Ontario, Canada | People-led Open Data Program Adopting the International Open Data Charter (IODC) has provided a sustained positive impact on our open data program. The IODC’s working group provides peer support on emerging issues like indigenous data governance, data ethics, trustworthy data stewardship and, most recently, pandemic preparedness to keep Ontario on the leading edge of standards and practices. This has resulted in a people-led open data program Ontarians have grown to trust to inform their actions especially as we recover together. |
2016 | Americas | Learn more |
| Open Data | Republic of Korea | National Core Data Release Program The National Core Data Release Program aims to solve social problems and create a foundation for the economic growth of new industries in the IT and digital sectors. The government surveys citizens and businesses to identify high-demand datasets, resulting in over 120 datasets on topics like food, pharmaceuticals, real estate transactions, public procurement, smart cities and the COVID-19 pandemic. The public can easily access and use applications developed by the private sector to resolve social issues. It has also benefited the country’s economy by building the capacity to create new industries driven by open data. |
2016 | Asia Pacific | Learn more |
| Open Data | Seoul, Republic of Korea | Digital Mayor’s Office In Seoul, citizens and the mayor have access to the same data to comprehend the overall work of Seoul. The information is accessed through the Digital Mayor’s Office (http://scpm.seoul.go.kr/), and integrates and visualizes over 90 million items of information on safety, air quality, transportation and health, as well as live video from 500 intelligent CCTV cameras throughout Seoul. The initiative attracted wide media attention, resulting in over 6,000 press reports and 221 reports by institutions in Korea and overseas. It was also adopted by 33 institutions in Korea. |
2016 | Asia Pacific | Learn more |
| Open parliament | Estonia | Citizen Initiative Portal Through the Citizen Initiative Portal rahvaalgatus.ee everyone can raise a social problem or issue, hold a public debate, or initiate a collective address to the parliament. The parliament is required to process appeals that have at least 1,000 signatures in support. More than 60 petitions have been submitted to the parliament so far, most of them through the portal. Since 2020 it is also possible to submit a collective petition to a local government if it’s supported by at least 1% of the people living in that locality. See how it works! https://youtu.be/27lN6HmwuY4 |
2014 | Europe | Learn more |
| Open parliament | Jalisco, Mexico | Citizen Feedback Portal on Draft Laws The Congress of Jalisco is implementing an Open Parliament microsite, ‘Congreso Jalisco Abierto,’ which improves the accessibility of legislative information and adds interactive sections which enable citizens to influence the law and decree initiatives that are being passed. At the same time, it simplifies the language of this information so it’s more accessible to all citizens. Thanks to this digital platform, the level of participation and incidence of civil society and experts in the process of creating and approving the initiatives that will transform or become laws in Jalisco has increased, opening new spaces for interaction with citizens. |
2019 | Americas | Learn more |
| Open parliament | Romania | Open Legislative Portal The platform legislatie.just.ro gives citizens and professionals free and unrestricted access to national legislation, helping advance the rule of law by strengthening a shared understanding of the nation’s laws. The portal has facilitated access to over 200,000 normative acts for 10+ million visitors (3+ million unique visitors) in 2021 so far. The project’s operational continuity is supported by the Ministry of Justice from the state budget. |
2014 | Europe | Learn more |
| Oversight of Fiscal Policy | North Macedonia | Transparent & Accountable Local Government The transparency and accessibility of local governments increased significantly with the introduction of 3 innovative solutions: 1) E-dashboards on financial flows available on 39 municipal sites and the Finance Ministry website; 2) Regular streaming of municipal council sessions on social media in 18 municipalities; and 3) Community Forums as a local democracy and project co-design tool in 24 municipalities. These digital solutions are groundbreaking in the local context. Vote for our commitment and help us catalyze a new renaissance of local democracy in North Macedonia! |
2016 | Europe | Learn more |
| Public Participation in Fiscal Policy | São Paolo, Brazil | Participe+ Participe+ (https://participemais.prefeitura.sp.gov.br/) is a digital participation portal that allows citizens to make decisions on public policies offered by all municipal bodies in a single place. During the pandemic, citizens chose proposals for the use of resources from the municipal budget distributed among 32 subdistricts, with a 500% increase in citizen participation compared to 2019. It enabled citizens to contribute more than 40,000 proposals through 62 public consultations. The platform also has a voting functionality, which has allowed the election of civil society representatives to the various public policy councils of the city of São Paulo. |
2018 | Americas | Learn more |
| Public Participation | Ireland | Citizens’ Assembly Ireland is proud of the momentous changes that deliberative democracy has achieved in our society, including through the Citizens’ Assembly, which places the citizen at the heart of important legal and policy issues facing Irish society. Ireland has had two constitutional amendments passed which originated as proposals put forward by deliberative democracy exercises: advancing marriage equality as recommended by the Convention on the Constitution in 2013, and replacing the Eighth Amendment, which concerns abortion. The approach enabled a mature and informed debate of highly charged topics by citizens chosen at random to represent the views of the people of Ireland. |
2014 | Europe | Learn more |
| Public Procurement | Finland | State Procurement Data Although Finland ranks among the top 10 countries for the Open-Useful-Reusable Government Data Index, open data on state procurement were not available before spring 2017. Now, Tutkihankintoja.fi allows citizens, companies, interest groups and media to explore the Finnish government’s spending online. It also enables free development of services and applications based on the data. This innovative service makes public procurement more open, fair and ethical. It has received many awards for transparency and for the user-friendly service design. |
2017 | Europe | Learn more |
| Public participation in Fiscal Policy | Cote d’Ivoire | Participatory Budgeting Budgeting is at the heart of good governance. Côte d’Ivoire’s current commitment on participatory budgeting is just the latest in a series of commitments starting in 2016. What began as a small pilot project aimed at helping a few local governments conduct participatory budgeting has scaled into work to generalize this practice across all local governments in the country. This work has had a significant impact in improving budget transparency, citizen participation in the fight against corruption, and the improvement of public services. |
2018 | Africa & Middle East | Learn more |
| Public participation | Denmark | Management Labs In 2012, the Central Denmark Regional Authority teamed up with municipalities and businesses to collaborate on new ways to involve citizens, employees, and other stakeholders in the decision-making process. Public participation is one of the pillars of open gov and the cornerstone to our membership in OGP. The commitment has been an inspiration ever since. |
2012 | Europe | Learn more |
| Public participation | Germany | Regional Open Government Labs From climate change to democracy promotion, how can we meet societal challenges more effectively through open government tools and principles? Regional Open Government Labs connects more than 100 municipalities and civil society organisations in thirteen labs across Germany that are testing how open government works in practice. They developed a theoretical model of causality and analytical tools to measure impact and take projects beyond pilots to broader implementation. The joint learning process across politics, administration and citizenry has gained momentum. The international interest in it and this nomination are proof of that. |
2019 | Europe | Learn more |
| Public participation | Italy | Open Administration Week The Settimana dell’Amministrazione Aperta is a valuable commitment for integrating open government principles into the national culture and global agenda. In the first 3 editions, the events held during the week grew from 241 in 2017 to 359 to 2019, and, even during the pandemic, in 2021, more than 1,400 participants attended webinars organized by the Public Administration Department. As part of the national strategy, the aim is to draw the attention of stakeholders involved in the process and raise expectations about more ambitious targets. Its innovative concept inspired OGP’s Open Gov Week! |
2016 | Europe | Learn more |
| Public services | Ghana | Open Data Initiative The Ghana Open Data Initiative (GODI) brings together government, civil society, citizens and academia to develop innovative applications, such as ‘Where My Money Dey’ – a public finance monitoring tool, ‘Online Blood Bank of Ghana’ which ensures application and management of the Bank to save lives, and ‘Accident-Prone Alert’, an application that helps authorities manage emergency response. GODI will now execute a community champions’ program to encourage citizen participation and incorporate Semantics Web intelligence to enable evidence-based decision making. |
2013 | Africa & Middle East | Learn more |
| Regulatory Governance | Croatia | e-Consultations The e-Consultations portal enables citizens to actively participate in lawmaking. It is a unique single access point to all open public consultations of all laws, regulations and acts launched by state administration bodies. The portal currently has more than 37,000 users. During 2019, a total of 1,031 consultations were conducted through the portal with participation from 4,150 residents. Croatia ranks above the average EU and OECD member states in conducting consultations with the interested public, and the portal is cited as a successful interactive platform for engaging citizens to shape public policy. |
2014 | Europe | Learn more |
| Right to information | Spain | Transparency Portal In 2013, when Spain passed the Transparency Law, it was one of the rare European nations that still had not approved a law on information access. Eight years later, Spain has advanced towards the vanguard in open government policies, thanks in part to the Transparency Portal created by this law. Citizens can access reports on citizen perception of public services, property rights, information on real estate and protected cultural assets, among others. The portal also has a participatory space for civil society to express opinions and make suggestions. It attracted 4.96 million visits in 2020. |
2014 | Europe | Learn more |
| Right to information | Tunisia | Right to Information Tunisia’s access to information law established a new relationship between the administration and citizens based on openness. By 2019, the Access to Information Authority received 1,111 appeals. It has already ruled on 887 appeals detailed as follows: 299 in favor of the plaintiff, 358 rejections, 194 dismissals and 36 withdrawals. This indicates a growing interest from citizens and civil society organizations to exercise this right and seek recourse in the event of refusal by the body concerned by the complaint. |
2016 | Africa & Middle East | Learn more |
| Science & Technology | Netherlands | The Stuiveling Open Data Award We all constantly use open data without knowing it. When we use traffic and weather apps or read news about the state of our economy and democracy, we are using open data. From 2016-2020, the Stuiveling Open Data Award has been rewarding winners (civil society organizations, startups, interest groups and journalists) with €20.000 to show innovative uses of open data. The submissions have given the Ministry of the Interior sharper insights to better align supply and demand of open data. |
2016 | Europe | Learn more |
| Science & Technology | United States | Open Science All 20+ US Federal science agencies have made more than 2.4 million articles freely available to the public, thus democratizing knowledge and building public trust in science. During the pandemic, this resulted in a collaboration between public and private sector actors who assembled articles and enabled artificial intelligence experts to develop new text and data mining techniques to help the scientific community answer high priority questions related to COVID-19. The dataset was downloaded more than 131,000 times and served as the basis for two major text-mining challenge competitions. Check it out: https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/covid-19-open-research-dataset-cord-19/ |
2015 | Americas | Learn more |
| Social accountability | Georgia | Budget Monitor Budget Monitor equips citizens, civil society and media with comprehensive and easy to interpret information on central and local budgets. Launched by the State Audit Office of Georgia (SAOG), it allows taxpayers to express their interests in auditing particular fields and inform SAOG about potential corruption risks in the public sector. It has enhanced SAOG’s performance and made it more citizen responsive. Georgia is 5th out of 117 countries in the Open Budget Index thanks to the Budget Monitor’s contribution to public participation, |
2016 | Asia Pacific | Learn more |
| Social accountability | Philippines | Citizen Participatory Audit The Citizen Participatory Audit goes beyond simple auditing by working closely with civil society on a range of policy decisions to improve people’s lives. It uses a constructive engagement approach between citizens and government to validate the government’s use of public resources to improve service delivery, protect rights, and promote community welfare. This improved many services at the local level, such as health centers in Barangay, public schools in Manila, residential water supply services in Quezon City, and solid waste management. Citizens are better-informed, more involved, and more vigilant, and the government is more accountable, responsive, effective, and efficient. |
2015 | Asia Pacific | Learn more |