Liberia Action Plan Review 2020-2022

This product consists of an IRM review of Liberia’s 2020-2022 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.... The action plan is made up of 12 commitments that the IRM has filtered and clustered into 11. This review emphasizes its analysis on the strength of the action plan to contribute to implementation and results. For the commitment-by-commitment data see Annex 1. For details regarding the methodology and indicators used by the IRM for this Action Plan Review, see section III, Methodology and IRM Indicators.

Overview of the 2020-2022 Action Plan

Liberia’s fourth action plan continues ambitious reforms—including 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 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, open contractingA transparent procurement process, known as open contracting, increases competition, improves public service delivery, and ensures governments better value for their money. Technical specifications: C... More, and whistleblower protections—that were not implemented in previous 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) Liberia Secretariat sought to strengthen government ownership of these commitments. However, the Independent Report Mechanism (IRM) recommends responsible government agencies establish clear roadmaps and monitoring plans to address obstacles that have inhibited successful open government reforms and to deliver on Liberia’s ambitious aims.

Liberia’s fourth action plan contains 12 commitments, six of which were carried over from previous action plans. Continued commitments—such as those for beneficial ownership and open contracting—are ambitious, clear, and largely identical to previous versions. Yet these ambitious reforms had a low rate of implementation in preceding cycles. Therefore, achieving comprehensive implementation should be the Liberian multistakeholder forum’s focus moving forward.

This action plan was developed through a consultative process involving government officials, civil society, and citizens. A multistakeholder steering committeeThe Steering Committee is OGP’s executive decision-making body. Its role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests; establish OGP’s core ideas, policies, and ru... considered IRM recommendations and proposals from citizens, civil society organizations, and government officials. Four new commitments were selected from the proposals. These commitments concern an open government response to the COVID-19 crisis, prevention of gender-based violence, and youth civic participation.

During co-creation, the OGP Liberia Secretariat assigned a principal actor for each 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.... The Secretariat gave these actors the mandate and authority sufficient to ensure implementation. This constitutes important progress over the previous co-creation cycle.

However, other obstacles that blocked implementation in previous plans remain. Implementers should establish clear roadmaps and monitoring plans to ensure that each commitment meets its objective. For example, Commitment 4 (to enact the Whistleblower and Witness Protection Bill) has been unsuccessful and carried over for two action plans.

Another obstacle to implementation is a lack of alignment between the stated objective and listed activities in commitment design. For example, Commitment 5 (on open and inclusive contracting) highlights the challenges women face in participating in government procurement processes. However, it does not state how the commitment’s activities would improve women’s opportunities to participate in government procurement.

This review focuses on the four most promising commitments in Liberia’s fourth action plan. These commitments are ambitious, verifiable, and relevant to OGP values. Commitment 1 aims to establish a public beneficial ownership register across industries. Commitment 4 would significantly strengthen Liberia’s legal and institutional anticorruption framework, in part through the passage of the Whistleblower and Witness Protection Bill. Commitment 5 would create a much-needed open contracting portal. Finally, Commitments 6 and 12 are clustered together, as they both aim to increase transparency and civic participation in Liberia’s healthcare system. Specifically, they seek to open the country’s COVID-19 response.

Promising Commitments in Liberia’s 2020-2022 Action Plan

The following review looks at the four commitment clusters that the IRM identified as having the potential to realize the most promising results. This review will inform the IRM’s research approach to assess implementation in the Results Report. The IRM Results Report will build on the early identification of potential results from this review to contrast with the outcomes at the end of the implementation period of the action plan. This review also provides an analysis of challenges, opportunities and recommendations to contribute to the learning and implementation process of this action plan.

Regarding the commitments not analyzed in-depth below, several (Commitments 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11) were assessed by the IRM as having modest potential for results. These commitments constitute positive steps forward but have moderate 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.... They largely focus on increased transparency through online portals, as opposed to broader reforms that could serve as game changers to the policy areas being addressed. However, implementation of these commitments can act as a springboard for more ambitious reforms in future action plans. Commitment 11 mainly constitutes a monitoring and evaluation roadmap for the action plan itself, which is important, given Liberia’s low implementation track record. However, the IRM will assess it as part of Liberia’s efforts to meet OGP procedural recommendations and guidelines, part of the Participation and Co-Creation StandardsCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders is at the heart of the OGP process. The Participation and Co-Creation Standards are intended to support this collaboration throug....

Two commitments, 7 and 10, as written in the action plan, begin to address pressing national issues. However, they are not analyzed below, as they are of moderate ambition and face especially significant implementation obstacles. Commitment 7 takes the vital step of creating a central database of bills for the legislature. However, it does not clearly identify the responsible authority within the national legislature that would ensure the implementation of the milestones. Additionally, very low rates of internet usages in Liberia mean that the register would not increase legislative transparency for most Liberians. Implementers should consider hard-copy, audio, and visual formats that are tailored to their audience in content, format, and language. Likewise, making public consultations standard practice for all bills would represent a more systematic reform.

Commitment 10 introduces the new policy areas civic space and youth participation to Liberia’s OGP commitments. Limited opportunities for Liberia’s young population make up a critical issue. Yet the commitment does not specify how the milestones, mainly focused on events and a report, would translate to permanent policy changes. The difficulty of such translation is evidenced by past National Youth Summits. To strengthen this commitment, the Ministry of Youth and Sports could consider incorporating policies and procedures aimed at ensuring ongoing and meaningful dialogue between youth and the government, with an emphasis on ensuring government responsiveness.

The four promising commitments in the table below are all initially assessed as ambitious, verifiable, and relevant to OGP values. All four commitments propose binding and institutionalized changes to government institutions, policies, or practices. The first three represent ongoing open government aims, while the fourth commitment cluster applies an “open response, open recovery” approach to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[1] For more details regarding the IRM Refresh visit https://www.opengovpartnership.org/process/accountability/about-the-irm/irm-refresh/.

[2] For commitments that are clustered: the assessment of potential for results is conducted at the cluster level, rather than the individual commitments.