World Leaders Endorse OGP’s Paris Declaration on International Anti-Corruption Day

PARIS, FRANCE December 9, 2016  Eighty Governments and hundreds of civil society organizations from around the world have signed up to collective actions in the Paris Declaration, including several on anti-corruption. This comes at the close of the 3-day Open Government Partnership Global Summit in Paris which also saw the launch of new open government reforms by the 15 members of OGP’s Subnational Pilot Program, the addition of five new countries to the partnership and over 600 workshops and panels.

The Paris Declaration includes nineteen collective actions, where governments and civil society groups agree to work together towards output-oriented tangible results. Collective Actions include: Transparency and open contracts in the natural resource sector; Transparency on lobbying; Ending abuse of anonymous companies, implementation of access to information laws; Harnessing the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development and Climate Risk Resilience, implementation of guiding principles for 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... policies; and increasing responsiveness of public services.

Sanjay Pradhan, 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 CEO, set the stage for the three day event by reminding participants of the current geopolitical context. “The Open Government movement has never been more under threat – and yet our work have never been more vital for a more hopeful world. We need civil society activists, journalists, parliamentarians, private sectorGovernments are working to open private sector practices as well — including through beneficial ownership transparency, open contracting, and regulating environmental standards. Technical specificat... and reformers in government to leverage the OGP platform to join forces, forge coalitions and find collective courage to fight vested interests.”

Addressing his final OGP Summit as US President, US President Obama said by video: “As I prepare to leave this office, I more convinced than ever that the most important title is not President or Prime Minister  – it’s citizen. In the coming years I intend to join you on the front-lines as we work together as citizens to build societies more just, more equal and more accountable. So thank you for all that you do and keep up the great work.”

Manish Bapna, executive vice president of the World Resources Institute, co-chair of OGP said, “OGP must now go further faster to stem the rise of authoritarian populism. As a Partnership, we must lead the open government movement, restoring democratic values against a wave of nationalism, extremism and the closing of civic space.”

“Making Transparency Count” was the theme of this year’s Open Government Awards, which was open to civil society organizations that have used OGP results to further their work. Top prize went to  ProZorro, which sheds light on corrupt procurement practices in Ukraine. Runners up were Indonesia’s API Pemilu platform, which centralizes election data to improve citizen engagement and streamline the elections process. Also the Honduran branch of the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CoST), which works to make government more accountable for construction and infrastructure spending. Four initiatives received honorable mentions: Malawi’s Transparency Infrastructure project, Mongolia’s Check My Service project, Mexico’s Budget Transparency Portal, and the Netherlands’ Open Spending portal.

Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, welcomed leaders from OGP’s pilot subnational program to Paris saying, “The subnational gathering in Paris is a historic achievement that demonstrates how indispensable city participation is in overcoming the challenges of our century.” Government and civil society leaders from Austin, United States; Bojonegoro, Indonesia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Elgeyo Marakwet, Kenya; Jalisco, Mexico; Kigoma, Tanzania; La Libertad, Peru; Madrid, Spain; Ontario, Canada; Paris, France; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Scotland, United Kingdom; Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana; Seoul, South Korea and Tbilisi, Georgia attended the event.

ENDS

For questions or to set up interviews please contact:

• Dietlind Lerner, Communications Director (English, French, German)
  dietlind.lerner@opengovepartnership.org
• Madaleine Weber, Communications Officer (English, Spanish)
  madaleine.weber@opengovpartnership.org 
• Rachel Ostrow, Communications Officer (English, Russian)
  rachel.ostrow@opengovpartnership.org

Notes to the editor about the Paris Declaration:

Through joining a particular collective action on a non-binding voluntary basis and to the extent permitted under its laws, each government member or civil society organization will share tools, expertise and experiences, or mobilize technical or financial resources where possible and appropriate. Where OGP government members participate in new collective actions, they will work with civil society to ensure these actions are reflected as commitments in their current or future National Action Plans. OGP governments and civil society organizations are only endorsing the collective actions that they choose to join.

Notes to the editor about the Global Summit:

• For an overview of speeches, blogs and publications from the Summit, visit Communications updates from the Summit
• Join the conversation on Twitter with  #OGP16,  #Act2open,and #OGPLocalGov
• Video from the Summit, including speeches from President Obama and Prime Minister Trudeau are available on our Youtube page (in English, French and Spanish)
• For all live streams and details of all summit events visit http://www.opengovpartnership.org/events/ogp-global-summit-2016-paris
• Clarification on new countries joining OGP at the 2016 Global Summit:
• New Countries with letters of intent: Germany, Jamaica, Pakistan, Burkina Faso and Luxembourg.
• New countries who are eligible and announced they will join soon: Portugal and Afghanistan.
• Non-eligible countries announcing they will work towards eligibility and join in the future: Morocco, Haiti, Guinea, Madagascar and Senegal
• In addition, the Hungarian government withdrew from OGP on December 6, 2016

About OGP:

OGP was formally launched on September 20, 2011, on the sidelines of a UN General Assembly meeting, when eight heads of state, along with nine civil society leaders, endorsed the Open Government Declaration and published the first cohort of OGP National Action Plans. Today OGP is composed of 74 national governments, 15 subnational governments, seven multilateral organizations, and thousands of civil society organizations who together have made over 3,000 commitments towards open government reform to promote 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, increase civic participation, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to make governments more open, effective, and accountable to citizens around the world.

For more information about how Open Government Partnership works visit our website or read our brochure, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, subscribe to our Newsletter and Gazette, or watch our films 5 Years of OGP and The Story of OGP.