OGP Summit Agenda : Call for Proposals

Help set the OGP Annual Summit Agenda!

Around 1,500 participants from government, civil society organizations, multilateral organizations, media, and the private sector are expected to attend the 2015 Open Government Partnership Global Summit in Mexico City on October 27 - 29.

In keeping with the OGP’s spirit of cooperation and co-creation - and our conviction that “good ideas come from everywhere!” - the summit agenda will be generated through an open call for proposals. We are inviting all interested parties to submit proposals for sessions they would like to lead. Special emphasis will be placed on discussion of the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Post-2015 Agenda and how they can be supported and better implemented by open governments. We particularly encourage creative proposals that incorporate innovative and dynamic methods of participation and exchange.

Visit here to pre-register and submit proposals!

¡Nos vemos en México en octubre!

OGP European Regional Meeting Tbilisi, Georgia

Early last month, 26 OGP Points of Contact or POCs, (the people who serve as liaison between their government and the OGP support unit) met for a 2-day regional meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia opened by the Prime Minister. The main objective was to receive training in OGP procedures, but by many accounts the opportunity to spend time with fellow POCs was just as educational.

The program included plenaries, tutorials and a couple of work-shops. POCs traded best practices as well as experiences of lessons learnt. In the evenings they bonded over Khachapuri, Georgian wine and OGP-branded cake.

French POC Claire-Marie Foulquier-Gazagnes found the event particularly helpful because POCs, “got to know each other and learned in the process. As France is currently finishing its National Action Plan, this Summit brought into perspective our work. I was able to collect good practices for our next steps (implementation, evaluation of the National Action Plan…) from peers who had been down this road before us.”

Slovakian POC Jan Gondol felt, “the best part of the conference was networking and the ability to learn what's going on in other countries and what their plans are. I also enjoyed the sessions where we could hear directly from OGP staff about how we can get involved in our respective countries. Georgia perhaps started an interesting tradition and set the bar very high -- thank you for organizing this meeting with OGP staff as well as colleagues from the region..it was energizing!”

We look forward to continuing the conversations at the OGP Global Summit in Mexico (pre-register here!). In the meantime, click here for photos from Tbilisi.

OGP Research

A new report has been published on OGP's Access to Information (ATI) commitments, funded by the World Bank. Given the importance placed on ATI legislation across the globe, this report analyses all 133 ATI commitments submitted by OGP participating countries since 2011 in their national action plans. Some highlights are:

• Latin America and the Caribbean (LCR) have the largest number of commitments on ATI.
• Colombia, the Philippines, Spain, Costa Rica and Ghana included the approval of ATI legislation as one of their commitments.
• ATI commitments are generally ambitious and contrary to expectation, are largely prioritized and completed on time.
• The most common factor hindering or delaying the implementation of ATI commitments is the lack of a centralized budget or planning exercises to support reforms, and infrequent interaction between those responsible for the implementation of ATI commitments and Finance Ministries.
• OGP is widely perceived as a valuable platform for connecting key players worldwide to share knowledge and provide support for ATI reforms.