Leveraging OGP to Advance SDG 6

The principles of transparency, public participation and accountability are recognized as key to water and sanitation policies, as OECD’s Principles on Water Governance demonstrate. A number of international financial institutions have supported this work, including the Inter-American Development Bank (IABD) through its Transparency Fund, and the World Bank through the implementation of its citizen engagement strategy.

Some progress has been made in the incorporation of these principles in the water sector; however, successes are sometimes limited to statements or have been adopted unilaterally. In this context, the Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) is a unique mechanism that can support the co-creation of commitments to advance the operationalization of these principles, as illustrated by Uruguay’s commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... to formulate a National Water Plan. OGP represents a forum to encourage and facilitate cooperation among public officials, civil society, and citizens to identify actions with regards to access to information; open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... and transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More; citizen participationAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, citizen participation occurs when “governments seek to mobilize citizens to engage in public debate, provide input, and make contributions that lead to m... More and feedback; and accountability in the water sector. A distinct feature of OGP is its Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ..., which requires governments to report on the completionImplementers must follow through on their commitments for them to achieve impact. For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlin... of their commitments and conducts independent assessments on its ambitionAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should “stretch government practice beyond its current baseline with respect to key areas of open government.” Ambition captures the po... and implementation.

Though OGP countries are adopting a growing number of water-related commitments, both at the national and local levels, they have not yet achieved the full potential that OGP can offer. First, the dialogue between government authorities and civil society groups that focus on the water and governance needs to be strengthened, considering the participation of OGP’s open data, open contractingA transparent procurement process, known as open contracting, increases competition, improves public service delivery, and ensures governments better value for their money. Technical specifications: C... and open budget communities, to name a few. This takes time as they speak different languages and embrace different approaches, so trust must be promoted among the various parties.

Also, national public officials and civil society stakeholders could benefit from their membership in OGP’s partner organizations (such as ADB, IDB, World Bank, OECD and UND), engage them in the national consultation processes to develop action plans, and explore the possibility to leverage technical assistance and other resources from them – given the implementation challenges such as lack of sufficient funding and technical capacity – identified by an OGP review.

Given IFIs’ significant investment in water-related projects, by incorporating project components that embrace the pillars of open government, these organizations could comply with their transparency and citizen engagement strategies, while supporting OGP and open government reforms. Moreover, transparency is pivotal (as are the other open government principles) to the effective use of the additional resources needed that will help us advance SDG 6, as highlighted in the session “Making Best Use of WASH Finance. A Conversation with IFIs” at World Water Week that Stockholm hosted.