OGP as a platform to build trust and culture of openness in Nepal

In the third week of December, Nepal will be celebrating Open Nepal week, which will focus on the theme of open government this year. The 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 (OGP), with its mission of securing concrete commitments from governments to increase accountability and responsiveness to citizens’ needs, can be an important platform in Nepal for realizing the elevated level of interaction needed between civil society and government in order to build the trust needed for sustaining peace and pursuing a common agenda for change.

As the country embarks on a journey to institutionalize a new political set up marked with a transition to a federal structure from a unitary state, in many ways, the context in Nepal is conducive for it to join OGP. It has just introduced a new constitution after more than a decade of civil unrest and governance breakdown. With this, the government is systematically putting structures in place for its own form of federal democratic governance. “OGP offers innovation to find new forms of civic participation in democratic governance. It will be useful for us while developing structures and mechanisms of governance at 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... level”, said Nepal Government’s Chief Secretary Dr Som Lal Subedi who participated in the OGP Global Summit held in Mexico in October. He added the sharing of best practices in promoting citizens participation in national and sub-national level through technological innovations would work in our context while implementing the new constitution.

The presence of civil society organisations already experienced in advocating for openness, securing government buy-in, and improving technical capacity with an emerging community of techies engaging with public policy issues provides a good foundation for the partnership between government and civil society that OGP requires. The constitutionally-guaranteed 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... (RTI) enabled with constitutional, legal and institutional provisions, growing campaigns for information requests, and capacity strengthening of the demand and supply side, including building the capacity of journalists, has established RTI as a popular tool for exercising citizenship. Furthermore, there is already an 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... movement in the country, spurred by government and donors’ releases of 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... data and CSO-led initiatives such as Open Nepal.

At the same time, there’s also much to be done in improving Nepal’s low ranking on many social and economic indicators, addressing high-level of social inequalities and corruption, and building mutual trust between government and citizens. These provide further rationale for Nepal to join OGP and benefit from the access to the network of reformers and opportunities for peer learning the platform offers.

“Open government is inherent part of modern life. The recognition of civic space in governance is the key theme of open government partnership which accords high value in addressing growing pursuit of good governance mostly in developing countries like ours”, noted Taranath Dahal, who also attended the OGP Global Summit representing civil society organizations of Nepal. He underlines the need for devising mass sensitization for CSOs and government and making systematic efforts to push the OGP agenda in Nepal.

Nepal already meets the required eligibility criteria on fiscal 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, access to information, 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 citizen engagement. Joining OGP would not just be an opportunity to streamline and raise ambitionAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should “stretch government practice beyond its current baseline with respect to key areas of open government.” Ambition captures the po... levels of transparency and accountability initiatives already taking place in Nepal but also provide an important signal of the government’s willingness to be a listening and responsive government, a government which is committed to providing opportunities for citizen engagement in public affairs, and building the trust between the state and its citizens that is so essential to ensuring the sustainability of its democratic reforms.