Rebuilding Trust

It is a pleasure to share my first blog post as civil society co-chair of 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.  Together with the Government of Georgia, my co-chair this coming year, I look forward to supporting the OGP community as we build on our success to date.  

In September, the OGP Steering Committee held an in-person meeting on the margins of the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.  Full coverage of the decisions taken at this meeting is available in the minutes.  With this blog, I wish to highlight some of the key points of interest for our civil society community.  

Strengthening the OGP process and platform

Throughout OGP’s 2016 Strategy Dialogues, the civil society community raised concerns around OGP’s eligibility criteria.  In the face of shrinking civic space around the globe, there was a real and growing concern that these criteria failed to properly capture civil liberties and civic space realities the ground, opening OGP membership to countries that failed to live up to OGP’s core values.  The two decisions highlighted below were developed to address those concerns, and to ensure OGP remains a strong and credible partnership.    

The Value Check   

Following an extensive consultation process, the Steering Committee has now endorsed an additional requirement for countries joining the Partnership: the ‘Value Check’.  In the future, countries looking to be admitted to OGP will have to earn a score of 3 or higher on two Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) indicators (details on the selection of these indicators are available here).  This an important step in addressing the critical civic space concerns raised by our civil society partners, and we trust this will help raise the eligibility bar.  

Steering CommitteeThe Steering Committee is OGP’s executive decision-making body. Its role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests; establish OGP’s core ideas, policies, and ru... eligibility criteria

OGP countries must lead by example and respect the principles that they signed up to as part of the Open Government DeclarationThe Open Government Declaration is the declaration of commitment to upholding the principles of open and transparent government, approved by the founding countries of OGP in 2011. Countries are requir.... They need to be ambassadors for open government at international fora, but even more so at home.  

This is especially so for those looking to join the Steering Committee.  To ensure that those with a seat at the table practice what we preach, the Steering Committee endorsed strengthened eligibility criteria (details here).  These break no new ground, but simply seek to ensure that those at the table model OGP’s values and principles and live up to the highest standards on civic participation – not just in their OGP process, but across government.

In addition to this, a final revised version of the Response PolicyThe Response Policy is used when an OGP participating country appears to be taking actions that undermine the values and principles of OGP, as articulated in the Open Government Declaration, in a way ... proposed during the June Steering Committee meeting was approved by consensus.  The full policy will be published on shortly.   

Our vision  

With these milestones under our belt, I would like to now look ahead and share some of the priorities the Government of Georgia and I will be pursuing as co-chairsThe leadership of the Steering Committee is made up of four co-chairs who provide strategic guidance and support to advance OGP’s overarching priorities. Co-Chairs serve two-year terms beginning on ..., that also help further the priorities we collectively set for ourselves under OGP’s strategic refresh.  

As I outlined in my remarks at UNGA, open governance is not only good in and of itself.  It finds real meaning in how it fundamentally changes the nature and process of service delivery to those most in need of government support for their survival and dignity.  In doing so, it can claim back some of the trust that has been lost to corruption, poor use of public resources, and a shrinking civic space.

Firstly, we hope to strengthen co-creation and citizen engagement.  Putting citizens back at the heart of government is what OGP is all about.  It is our express aim to further tailor and tweak our engagement across the Partnership to ensure this remains front and center.  

Secondly, we will direct our attention towards 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 and anti-corruption.  When public funds are siphoned off to line private pockets, citizens get fewer roads, fewer schools, and fewer doctors than they deserve. Or pay for.  Corruption also adds up to 10% to the total cost of doing business globally, with over 1 trillion dollar paid in bribes each year.  Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant – through transparency, citizens will be become powerful players in stopping corruption in its tracks.  

Thirdly, we will look to generate innovation in public service deliveryTo ensure that citizens of all groups are better supported by the government, OGP participating governments are working to improve the quality of and access to public services. Commitments in this are....  States will be better placed to cater for their citizens in health, educationAccountability within the public education system is key to improving outcomes and attainment, and accountability is nearly impossible without transparent policies and opportunities for participation ... and public infrastructure – to name a few – when those citizens can have a say and share feedback.  This is an exciting area with a growing number of commitments and success stories in OGP.  I look forward to sharing them with you as we build on this in the months to come.   

In this effort we look forward to working with partners and countries – and help strengthen platforms looking for implementation and delivery around the 2030 agenda and other global norms.

Further food for thought

The above are just some of the highlights of this year’s UNGA meeting.  The Steering Committee endorsed the expansion of the highly successful sub-nationalRecognizing that much of what impacts people’s daily lives occurs at the local level, many OGP countries are working to open up lower levels of government by creating commitments focused on subnatio... pilot as well as the mandate for the new thematic leadership subcommittee.  Country discussions centered on Mexico, Tanzania, Azerbaijan and Turkey, all of which offer much food for thought as the Partnership grows.  For details on these rich discussions, I once again invite you to look at the minutes for this meeting.  

The OGP event on the margins of UNGA focused on rebuilding trust, which included the launch of the flagship publication that shares ideas from leaders from different sectors as to how we can do this better.  

To rebuild trust, all of us – in our governments, our organisations, and our work in general – must practice what we preach.  OGP has raised the bar.  I invite you all to join us.