Looking back on OGP Global Summit
Oliver Rack
Certified Data Steward & Open Governance Specialist | Polymath & Context Broker | Intellectual Services & Boutique Advisory | Operations in engine rooms of emancipatory Tech, Culture, Rules, Governance | Glocal Diplomacy
My spotlights on the OGP Global Summit 2021 at RoK
The OGP Global Summit 2021, held in Seoul in December, capped OGP's first decade. OGP and partners hosted a series of thematic events to advance agendas, e.g. around justice, anti-corruption, gender and inclusion.
The many contributions and dialogues offered a broad scope: from, for example, USAID Administrator Samantha Power to investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, as well as government ministers, donors and private sector representatives and civil society leaders. They achieved to mobilise high-level support, highlight concrete reforms at country level - including in the OGP Action Plans - and pay tribute to the many reformers working on the Summit's topics.
Fourteen heads of state and government - more than ever before - attended. There were contributions from the leaders of the Republic of Korea, Canada, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Georgia, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Ukraine and the United States.
The reporting system of the OGP mechanism, the IRM and the corresponding database on action plans, made it possible to express the past 10 years in figures: "OGP Vital Signs - 10 Years of Data in Review" analysed data from nearly 200 OGP action plans to understand where the action plan process is working well, where it needs improvement and what this means for future OGP strategies. "OGP at Ten: Towards Democratic Renewal" presents the data, reforms and stories that show OGP is working. Also the OGP Database / Explore has been relaunched. See a preview of the dahboard:
OGP Vital Sign results in a nut shell:
Accordingly, during the IRM Week of the OGP Summit, OGP researchers also focused on the latest assessments of the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) through focused discussions with selected countries and the release of cross-country comparative data. During the OGP Academy 2021 at the Summit, they exchanged views on new research developments, captured the impact of Open Government and planned future research collaborations.
In particular, the local and regional levels were also very strongly represented thematically: Leaders from Bogota, Brebes Regency and Catalonia attended the local leadership plenary session to highlight local efforts towards open governance to combat the challenges of the pandemic. OGP and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) signed a Memorandum of Understanding to formalise their partnership and strengthen collaboration to promote open governance and strengthen local voices in global agendas. They also announced the addition of up to 50 new members under the OGP Local Programme in 2022 and launched a call for expressions of interest. The deadline for submission is 16 March. Together with the Point of Contact at the Federal Chancellery and the OGP, the Open Government Network has already organised several webinars on this topic.
Open Government Awards ceremony
In 2021, the OGP Support Unit asked government points of contact (PoC) in OGP member countries and local communities to consult with their multi-stakeholder forum and nominate a commitment to be considered for the Impact Award. To facilitate this task, the Support Unit provided a list of commitments that have been assessed by the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) as "Star", "Major" or "Outstanding" for opening up government. These are commitments included in action plans from 2012 to 2018 that have shown promising early results.
Winners:
OGP Impact Awards
OGP Local Innovation Awards
Launch of OpenStories?
The OGP has launched the OpenStories platform. A place where the community can share stories of progress and inspiration for their work to change the way governments and citizens work together. A great pairing to the Voices of Open Government podcast launched in October.?
Cross Level Open Government
Cross-level cooperation in the administrative structure of Open Government is not only interesting in the very federal structure of Germany: from Mexico to Indonesia, from Estonia to Kenya, a number of variants of cooperation between national and local governments - inside and outside the OGP process - have emerged. At the invitation of Carolina Cornejo, National Director Open Government Argentina and Jose M. Marin from the OGP Support Unit u OGP Local, some of the different ways and experiences national OGP members have integrated local government into their OGP work to drive open government reform like from Argentinia presented by Carolina Cornejo, Georgia presented by Kety Tsanava, Scotland presented by Lucy McTernan and Elgeyo-Marakwet/Kenya presented by John Maritim were discussed.?
Also a new partnership with United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) to?strengthen our collaboration in promoting open governance and increasing local voices in global agendas was formalized. OGP CEO Sanjay Pradhan and UCLG Secretary General Emilia Sáiz signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to formalize our partnership and collaboration that has been developing over the past several years.
The launch of the Open Government Africa Network "Africa GO".
The Africa GO Network is a network designed as an ecosystem to create open government partnerships between African countries and explore ways to further leverage open government principles on the African continent.
The network is the result of a shared desire to promote South-South cooperation among African countries engaged in the process of Open Government and to make it a dynamic model of cooperation.
In particular, it aims to highlight the growing momentum of Open Government in Africa, but also to enhance the joint development and maintenance of Open Government initiatives and tools, and to enhance shared learning. The event was hosted by Tarik Nech-Nach, Senior Regional Coordinator, Africa and Middle East at OGP and Sarah Lamrani, Director of Studies, Communication and Cooperation at the Ministry of Digital Transformation and Administrative Modernisation of Morocco.
Open Government in Europe: What's next? Spoiler: Connect the dots!
At the invitation of the German PoC at the Federal Chancellery, Sebastian Haselbeck, and Lucy McTernan from the University of York and member of the OGP Civil Society Steering Committee, OGP representatives for Europe met to further develop OGP in Europe. According to OGP Europe Coordinator Helen Turek, transnational networks on OpenGov/OGP have already emerged among Eastern European and Northern European OGP participating countries, while exchanges among Central-Western European participants are still almost non-existent.
I myself have long been involved with the Open Gov developments of our neighbours, especially France and Spain, and I always point out when Germany should copy a good development there. For example, the institutional design for Open Government in Spain, on which we have already organised exchanges with German actors in administration and civil society in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, among others.
An OGP network in the form of a "swoosh" extending from UK/Scottland-Netherlands-Germany-France-Italy-Spain would complement the existing Eastern and Northern networks, but would also allow valuable experience to circulate in a very concrete way and create readiness for possible consortia for EU funding. In addition, a competitive momentum within a region with similar challenges and focal points would spur the activities on Open Government - possibly also with a view to funding concepts. Accordingly, stronger networking of European actors would help to address funding from the EU's MFF, where more programme objectives on Open Government and Open Gov Data can be found - also in research. In (wealthy) Europe, there is still the problem that the World Bank and American philanthropists fund virtually no civil society open government activities, and European foundations are only just discovering the topic of open social innovation for themselves and are more timid about its content than the American foundations.
European networking could also generate even more momentum when promoting open government in policy areas where actors still know little about open government principles. For example, in the areas of sustainability and consumer protection and access to justice, I still see a lot of room for improvement. Or as Paul Maassen, Chief Country Support at the Open Government Partnership, put it: "It seems that there is now more appetite on the government side to involve citizens. But it's rarer to do it in the right way and on the right issues." And Peter Varga, Senior Regional Coordinator, Europe at Open Government Partnership adds, "One of the biggest challenges for citizen participation (besides the availability of information, i.e. the 'transparency' puzzle, and the availability of 'pathways' to participation, i.e. the 'supply' side) is simply getting people excited (i.e. the 'demand' side)." This is mainly due to the genesis of open government, that it involves actors from other policy fields than, for example, traditional participation in project planning and the environment. In turn, other actors are also involved in the field of consumer law. It is imperative that there is more solidarity here, also in international networking.
This issue should be taken up again in the near future.
Other participants included: