Norway Design Report 2019-2021

Norway’s fourth 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... focuses on the openness of public administration, 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..., and anti-corruption. Notably, the action plan continues a 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... to establish a public register of ultimate beneficial owners of Norwegian companies. In future action plans, Norway could work towards greater lobbyingLobbying transparency allows the public to ensure that there is diversity of participation and contribution to public decision-making. Technical specifications: Policies and actions affecting lobbying... 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 and improve commitment design by including milestones with measurable outcomes and clear outputs.

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. Norway joined OGP in 2011. Since, Norway has implemented three action plans. This report evaluates the design of Norway’s fourth action plan.

General overview of action plan

Norway continues to perform among the top countries in the world on measurements of good governance, transparency, and anti-corruption. The fourth action plan continues some priorities of previous plans, such as improving the openness of public administration and beneficial ownershipDisclosing beneficial owners — those who ultimately control or profit from a business — is essential for combating corruption, stemming illicit financial flows, and fighting tax evasion. Technical... More transparency. The action plan also focuses on improving access to data on energyEnsuring universal access to sustainable, dependable, and affordable energy is critical to every aspect of prosperity. Increasing public oversight and transparency in the energy sector can help to ens... More revenue statics and cultural data, as well as fully digitalising Norway’s 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 system.

The co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive... of Norway’s fourth action plan mainly involved one in-person consultation meeting in June 2018 where stakeholders could discuss potential topics for inclusionOGP participating governments are working to create governments that truly serve all people. Commitments in this area may address persons with disabilities, women and girls, lesbian, gay, bisexual, tr... More. While the process saw greater levels of civil society engagement compared to the previous plan, the government provided limited feedback to stakeholders on how proposals were integrated into the action plan. Following the submission of the fourth action plan, the Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation (KMD) formed a new OGP Council to help facilitate civil society’s involvement during implementation.

While several commitments in the fourth action plan address relevant topics in Norway, many lack milestones with measurable outcomes and clear outputs. This makes it difficult to determine the level of 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 or the intended changes that will result from the commitments. Notably, the action plan continues a commitment from the third plan (2016-2018) on establishing a publicly available register of ultimate beneficial owners of companies in Norway.

Table 2. Noteworthy commitments

Recommendations

IRM recommendations aim to inform the development of the next action plan and guide implementation of the current action plan. Please refer to Section V: General Recommendations for more details on each of the below recommendations.

Table 3. Five KEY IRM Recommendations