OGP In Motion: From Concept to Video
When OGP started in 2011, it was, as we like to say, a small group of reformers committed to making governments more open, transparent, and accountable. While OGP itself had high-level political support, a lot of the ideas the founders floated didn’t have the political support – or even awareness -to be put to the test. Commitments mostly existed on paper which is why a lot of our original videos were animated and theoretical- a stick figure walking into a bank, sketched out hands exchanging money. However, as a partnership of 70 countries and over 2,000 civil society organizations, our commitments have now been put into action and OGP’s new films – the Story of OGP and Five Years of OGP – are live-action and in color to demonstrate their impact.
In “The Story of OGP,” our founders talk about why OGP is an idea whose time has come – and how it arrived. Spliced with footage from OGP meetings and forums around the world, it shows real people talking about open governance and co-creating National Action Plans and commitments.
“Five Years of OGP” takes it one step further, with footage from real people who’ve experienced the benefits open governance can bring to citizens, government, and civil society. In a social media push, OGP called on the open government community to submit videos about their experiences with open government. We received dozens of videos talking about the impact of open budgets, 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 beneficial ownershipDisclosing beneficial owners — those who ultimately control or profit from a business — is essential for combating corruption, stemming illicit financial flows, and fighting tax evasion. Technical... More on communities around the world. We received footage of commitments in action – the passage of a lobbyingLobbying transparency allows the public to ensure that there is diversity of participation and contribution to public decision-making. Technical specifications: Policies and actions affecting lobbying... law in Chile, the opening of Soviet archives in Ukraine, the celebration of a same-sex marriage law passing in Ireland – and could finally put faces to OGP commitments. This film, launched at OGP’s five year anniversary event at UNGA, featured faces from five continents and landmark commitments from over a dozen countries – all in under four minutes!
Another OGP-related film, “Reboot Democracy,” released this month, shows the preparations for the 2016 OGP Summit in Paris in December. Produced by our French government partners, the film takes a look at high-level meeting preparations, shows interviews with civil society representatives, takes us to a hackathon for open governance, and prepares summit-goers for three non-stop days of dialogue.
OGP was digital from day one – bringing information and communications from government to citizens through phones, computers, and television. With the newest OGP films, you can see how OGP commitments go from virtual to real with concrete examples of open governance changing citizens’ lives.