The Opening Government Guide to support national action plans

In the run up to the upcoming Open Government Partnership (OGP) Summit, in London on October 31, countries are at different stages in developing and updating their plans to improve their openness and accountability to citizens. The Opening Government Guide developed by the Transparency and Accountability Initiative (T/A I) is a resource to help countries in developing ambitious national plans.

The first edition of The Guide was developed in 2011, when the OGP first started. However, two years down the line there is much more experience of developing action plans and many new standards to draw on; such as the GIFT High Level Principles on Fiscal Integrity, the International Aid Transparency Initiative standard, The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure, the Tshwane Principles on National Security and the Right to Information. New initiatives such as Open Contracting, the Whistleblowing International Network and the Global Open Data Initiative have been founded to share best practice in other areas. T/A I has therefore been working together with experts from many organisations to update the Guide to reflect the learning and developments of the past two years.  New topics on public contracting, budgets, records management and asset disclosureAsset declaration laws are an essential safeguard against corruption that require public servants to disclose information on their wealth, possessions, and other interests. Technical specifications: A... and conflicts of interestA key part of anti-corruption involves preventing or revealing conflicts of interest — when a public official is in a position to use public office for personal or private gain. Technical specificat... have been posted already, and topics on right to informationThe legal right to request information from the government allows the public to follow government decision-making, participate in ensuring better decisions, and hold the government accountable. Techni..., the construction sector, aidMore and better information about aid helps partner countries and donor institutions plan and manage aid resources more effectively, parliaments and civil society to hold governments accountable for t... will be posted next week, with more additions after that. The original chapters are also still available and can also be consulted.

The new guide will be launched at the OGP Summit, as a resource particularly for the 39 countries that will develop their second action plans after the summit, and others that will follow on the year after. We hope it will continue to be updated with new standards and guidance, and experiences from countries implementing their 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... commitments.

Please send any comments or suggestions to Maya Forstater.

Photo credit: A stack of books, by Janis Christie, via The Guardian