Malta Design Report 2018-2020

Malta’s third 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... includes five commitments, with only two of them being clearly relevant to opening government. The country does not have a multi-stakeholder forumRegular dialogue between government and civil society is a core element of OGP participation. It builds trust, promotes joint problem-solving, and empowers civil society to influence the design, imple... overseeing the development and implementation of the action plan. Future commitments could significantly increase in relevanceAccording to the OGP Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should include a clear open government lens. Specifically, they should advance at least one of the OGP values: transparency, citizen partic... and 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... through improved communication and collaboration with civil society.

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) is a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive, responsive, and accountable. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... monitors all action plans to ensure governments follow through on commitments. Malta joined OGP in 2011. Since then, Malta has implemented two action plans. This report evaluates the design of Malta’s third action plan.

General overview of action plan

The Ministry for European Affairs and Equality (MEAE) oversaw the online consultation process for developing the third action plan. There is no permanent multi-stakeholder forum for OGP. However, MEAE used the Malta Council for Economic and Social Development (MCESD) to hold two meetings in March 2018 with various organizations to discuss the action plan.

The ministry used the online public questionnaire to solicit inputs during the consultation phase. However, there is no publicly available evidence about civil society contributions or influence on the final content of the plan. Therefore, Malta did not reach the “Involve” threshold during the action plan development, and thus the country is acting contrary to OGP process.

Malta’s third action plan includes commitments on public service deliveryTo ensure that citizens of all groups are better supported by the government, OGP participating governments are working to improve the quality of and access to public services. Commitments in this are... More, migrant integration, blockchain technologies, strengthening of local government and the prevention of domestic violence. One commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... is not specific enough to be verified, and three commitments are not clearly relevant to OGP values. Two commitments are relevant to open government: the call for the implementation of the 2017 Migrant Integration Strategy (Commitment 2) and the strengthening of local councils and the Commission for Domestic Violence (Commitment 5). 

Table 2. Noteworthy commitments

Recommendations

The IRM recommendations aim to inform the development of the next action plan and guide implementation of the current action plan.

Table 3. Five KEY IRM Recommendations