Cabo Verde Design Report 2018-2020

Cabo Verde’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... comes in the context of the country’s recent steps to open government. Through OGP, Cabo Verde committed to further reforms such as the establishment of 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... portal. Future co-creation processes should prioritize equal and ongoing engagement with civil society. Familiarity with OGP processes will contribute to more ambitious commitments aligned with OGP values in future action plans.

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. Cabo Verde joined OGP in 2015. This report evaluates the design of Cabo Verde’s first action plan.

General overview of action plan

Cabo Verde’s first OGP action plan follows recent measures to increase citizens’ access to information and promote 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 accountability. This includes the creation of new government institutions and the publication of budget information. Cabo Verde is one of Africa’s best performing countries in quality of democracy and governance. While the action plan attempts to address some of these challenges, it would benefit from a clearer connection with OGP values and an increase in civil society involvement in the development process.

Led by the Office of the Prime Minister, Cabo Verde formed a government-led working group to create its first action plan. Although the group organized consultations with state and non-state actors, the plan primarily reflected government priorities, given limited input from civil society. The government could strengthen the process by improving the transparency of rules and decision-making, publishing OGP-related information, diversifying 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... to include more non-state actors, and formalizing the group’s mandate and functions.

Government leadership of the action plan design process led to commitments aligned with government objectives, such as addressing barriers to ease of doing business, infrastructure development, and data-sharing to foster innovation. Cabo Verde’s most notable open government 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 the promising launch of an open data platform.

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

[1] A Guide to Open Government and the Coronavirus: Open Data. Open Government Partnership. 4 May 2020. https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/a-guide-to-open-government-and-the- coronavirus-open-data/.