Luxembourg Design Report 2019-2021

Luxembourg’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... includes commitments on improving the 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 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 activities related to climate change. While most commitments reflect existing initiatives, several civil society proposals are included. Moving forward, Luxembourg could establish a formal multistakeholder forum to oversee the co-creation of the next action plan. Luxembourg could also consider commitments to strengthen whistleblower protection and enforce access to information legislationCreating and passing legislation is one of the most effective ways of ensuring open government reforms have long-lasting effects on government practices. Technical specifications: Act of creating or r....

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. Luxembourg joined OGP in 2016. This report evaluates the design of Luxembourg’s first action plan.

General overview of action plan

Luxembourg enters its first action plan with strong legal frameworks around preventing corruption and protecting political rights and civil liberties. The first action plan includes commitments on open data and open administration, as well as supporting platforms for human rightsAn essential part of open government includes protecting the sacred freedoms and rights of all citizens, including the most vulnerable groups, and holding those who violate human rights accountable. T.... In 2019, there was a leadership change and responsibility for OGP activities passed from the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (MAEE) to the Ministry of State.

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... for the first action plan involved several consultation workshops organized by the MAEE, where participants discussed 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. The MAEE postponed the co-creation process due to national electionsImproving transparency in elections and maintaining the independence of electoral commissions is vital for promoting trust in the electoral system, preventing electoral fraud, and upholding the democr... More in October 2018 in order to assure political ownership of the action plan. Moving forward, the IRM researcher recommends establishing a formal multistakeholder forum to oversee the co-creation of the next action plan and developing an online repositoryAccess to relevant information is essential for enabling participation and ensuring accountability throughout the OGP process. An OGP repository is an online centralized website, webpage, platform or ... to better document consultation meetings and stakeholder proposals.

Luxembourg’s first action plan includes commitments on open public administration, open data, and access to information on activities related to climate change. While most of the commitments represent existing government activities, two commitments were proposed by civil society organizations (CSOs): the creation of a CivicTech hub (Commitment 5) and supporting a platform for human right defenders (Commitment 6).

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