OGP Webinars: Enabling OGP’s Race to the Top
At 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 Global Summit in Mexico City in a few weeks, government and civil society champions of open government will gather to learn from each other’s efforts to make governments more effective, open, and responsive. We hope the conversation will continue past the conference and reformers can remain engaged in sharing ideas and expertise. The OGP Webinars provide the ideal platform to complement the face-to-face interactions at public meetings and events. As we approach the four-year anniversary of the OGP Webinars with our 63rd webinar this week, we reflect on this popular peer learning initiative.
The Webinars were launched by OGP in 2012 in partnership with the World Bank to encourage peer learning on critical open government issues among civil society and government participants. For the World Bank, the webinars complement its strategy on citizen-centric governance and its Open Learning Campus (OLC) by providing an accessible platform to connect government officials and civil society practitioners and experts across sectors.
The topics covered—curated based on the needs of the open government community—are as wide-ranging as its participants. Over the course of the series, webinars on access to information, fiscal 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, 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 ICTs, accountability institutions, citizen engagement, and many others have been featured. The webinars have also reinforced the work of the five thematic OGP Working Groups.
Our webinar platform allows participants to plug into the global conversation on open government. It enhances the peer learning experience by allowing participants to have parallel conversations, ask questions, and share learning materials to supplement the official presentations. Many participants have taken advantage of the convening power of the webinars to have follow-on conversations with peers on topics of interest.
The webinars are also appearing to have real impact on countries’ participation in OGP. For example, when asked how she plans to use the information gathered from the webinar, Ninoschka D., a participant from Uruguay responded, “The information presented in the webinar directly relates to the efforts undertaken by the working group responsible for monitoring the OGP National Action PlanAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... in Uruguay, and given that the responsible entity belongs to the executive, this information is included in the briefings to the President.”
To date more than 140 speakers have presented in over 60 webinars, bringing rich and diverse perspectives and expertise to the program. Over 4,700 participants from governments, civil society, private sectorGovernments are working to open private sector practices as well — including through beneficial ownership transparency, open contracting, and regulating environmental standards. Technical specificat... More, international organizations, and the media in over 100 countries have participated. Given the high demand, we are now hosting bimonthly webinars, both in English and Spanish.
So what is next for the OGP Webinars? The need for countries to learn from each other continues to grow as they expand the 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... of reforms tackled through OGP. We therefore invite you to continue participating, submit ideas and topics, and share your experiences and expertise so government and civil society reformers around the world can continue to be inspired to tackle increasingly difficult challenges.
In conclusion we would like to extend a sincere thanks to all presenters and participants who have taken the time to share their experiences and expertise and continue to support OGP’s race to the top.