Bosnia and Herzegovina Design Report 2019-2021 – For Public Comment

In 2020, 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 ... published the Design Report for BiH’s first 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... (2019-2021). The report covers the development of the action plan and the design of its commitments.

In BiH, the IRM researcher’s, Elma Demir, findings are summarized below:

“Bosnia and Herzegovina’s complex institutional set up and political system has affected its engagement in OGP since 2014. This first action plan was developed with civil society input and published in 2019. Commitments are related to ongoing projects rather than new initiatives, and include access to 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..., public procurementTransparency in the procurement process can help combat corruption and waste that plagues a significant portion of public procurement budgets globally. Technical specifications: Commitments that aim t... More 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, public consultations and integrity plans in public institutions. Feedback on 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... proposals and greater collaboration between civil society and government in drafting commitments could improve the 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... of the action plan.”

And in the local language:

“Kompleksna institucionalna struktura i politički sistem Bosne i Hercegovine odrazili su se na njene inicijative u okviru Partnerstva za otvorenu vlast (POV) od 2014. godine. Prvi Akcioni plan BiH pripremljen je uz doprinos civilnog društva i objavljen je 2019. godine. Obaveze u Akcionom planu su proistekle iz tekućih projekata, a manje kao nove inicijative, i uključuju: pristup otvorenim podacima, transparentnost javnih nabavki, javne konsultacije i planove integriteta u javnim institucijama. Dostavljanje povratnih informacija o prijedlozima obaveza i šira saradnja između civilnog društva i institucija vlasti u izradi obaveza mogle bi poboljšati rezultate Akcionog plana.”

In 2020, the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) published the Design Report for BiH’s first action plan (2019-2021). The report covers the development of the action plan and the design of its commitments. The report is available in English and in the local language here . The two-week public comment period closed Tuesday 30 November.