An overview of the OGP European and Asia-Pacific regional summits

This overview reflects on the OGP European and Asia-Pacific regional summits, recaptures some interesting moments, and provides additional links and suggested reads.

On the Summits

It all started off with the Steering Committee meeting in Bali, on May 4th and 5th. Some of the provisional results were described in the editorial, but official minutes of that meeting will be published in due time here. On May 4th, the Civil Society Day for the Asian Pacific Summit also took place. Concluding the CSO meeting, the attendants issued a joint statement , (signed by 183 organisations from 31 countries), on their main asks to OGP: more space for civil society in Asia Pacific; the incorporation of good governance in the post-2015 sustainable development framework; and the need for OGP to establish and maintain a civil society participation mechanism and standard for compliance with OGP’s values. You can read back Paul Maassen’s opening speech for the Civil Society Day here, and also revisit civil society co-chair Rakesh Rajani’s speech. There was some press covering of the CSO Day, for example in the Jakarta Post and the Bail Daily.

On May 6th and 7th, the actual Asia Pacific Summit took place. Around 650 representatives from governments, private sector, the media, youth, civil society and multilateral organisations from around 50 countries in the Asia Pacific region attended the two-day meeting. A delegation from Papua New Guinea was welcomed, with the country addressing its intent to become an OGP member in the near future. One main achievement for Indonesian civil society was the announcement of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono launching the Indonesia Open Data Portal. What particularly stood out was Indian social activist Aruna Roy’s speech on ‘the right to know is the right to live’. Some strong reflections of Michael Canares on the two-day meeting were published on the OGP website here and here. More major highlights of the summit described by the organisers themselves can be read in their own statement , which ends with the following words: “the conference concluded that reforming governments did not have to be a solo undertaking, but a global one. That inviting public participation needed not be a daunting task, but an inspiring one. That innovating public services should not be a costly initiative, but an affordable one”. President Yudhoyono’s opening speech can be read back here, and you can also read Minister Kuntoro Mangkusubroto further remarks addressing the participants. The actual event’s page provides much more recorded speeches, sessions and press releases.

At the same time, OGP activities started off in Europe. On the evening prior to the European Regional Summit, a Civil Society Day was organised by Open Knowledge Ireland in cooperation with OGP’s Civil Society Coordination team. Also here the objective of the meeting was to get connected as civil society, exchange ideas and good and worse practices and experiences, and get up to speed for the next two days. Issues prioritized by European civil society were central to the meeting: three main sessions were held on recurring issues touching privacy and surveillance; problems experienced with FOI implementation; and making use of the different stages of the OGP cycle. Parallel sessions were organised on how to involve the EU closer in OGP, building a European platform for budget monitoring and on stopping secrecy and creating openness in contracting. The opening speech addressing the European civil society crowd involved in OGP can be read back here. Some very nice pictures were taken during the day, which you can find back here.

Then, on May 8-9, the European Summit for OGP was held in Dublin, organised by the Irish Department for Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER). In the city centre’s picturesque Dublin Castle, around 300 representatives from European and international civil society and non-governmental organisations and governments alike gathered to attend the event to widely discuss issues of transparency, accountability and participation, and to exchange experiences and ideas on how to further and advance their own open government agenda. A broad array of different topics was covered in the two-day programme, ranging from the European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly speaking on the European context of open government, via sessions of the different OGP thematic Working Groups to a discussion on the role of the private sector in OGP. Of particular interest were as well the various ‘OGP in Action’ sessions in which representatives of the various attending countries and some of their IRM researchers updated each other on their relative progress and problems experienced in their national OGP processes. Also, OGP’s Independent Review Mechanism (IRM) organised a session translating some of the data of the first published progress reports into new information, sketching trends and patterns, and confirming/debunking ‘OGP myths’.

All plenary sessions were recorded and can be viewed back on OGP’s Youtube Channel. Civil Society Steering Committee member Veronica Cretu held a inspiring speech on what we will need to continue working on together to get the most out of OGP, which can be read back here. Delegations from France, Sierra Leone and Tunisia were warmly welcomed, as the former joint OGP two weeks prior to the meeting, and the latter two also recently became members and wanted to get the first feel of the international context of OGP.

If you want to check upon, view or read back any of the events, activities, developments and other rumours that you might have missed out on, you’ll probably best off checking the Twitter hashtags #OGP, #OGPDublin, or #OGPBali.

Recapturing OGP

After nearly two weeks full of summits and summit-related activities, we’d like to briefly point back to the basics of OGP that we want to provide for the international civil society community. To start with: the official OGP website has an enormous amount of information. If you want to revisit the basics from a civil society perspective you can have a look here. For a part of the crowd we had in the room particularly in Indonesia with many participants from non-OGP countries, the explanation of OGP eligibility will be helpful. In this document you can see how your country is doing and where additional points can be gotten from. If you want to campaign for membership I can recommend the Irish case study.

If you want to start or improve the dialogue with your government, have a look at the additional Consultation Guidelines that will inform you on how to improve the consultation process with your government. If you want to know more about good commitments on a whole range of Open Government topics I can recommend the Open Government Guide.

For more good reads, go to the OGPhub’s Resources Subpage that stores all our existing tools, case studies and guidelines, which might be of use in your daily work advocating for more open government at home.

via The OGP Civil Society Hub http://ift.tt/1jzMnnc