Italy Action Plan Review 2024-2026

Italy’s sixth 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 promising efforts to create a unified 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... register, define national guidelines for public participationGiving citizens opportunities to provide input into government decision-making leads to more effective governance, improved public service delivery, and more equitable outcomes. Technical specificatio..., and train public personnel on open government. The OGP IT Community widened engagement in 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.... Leadership from the Public Administration Department and active collaboration to build from policy recommendations to concrete reforms could strengthen commitments’ potential for results.

Italy’s sixth action plan (2024–2026) includes eight commitments, two of which were also submitted to the Open Gov Challenge (Commitments 3 and 5).^[1] They continue previous efforts on anti-corruption, public participation, lobbying, transparency, and open data while introducing a new commitment on artificial intelligence. These commitments are contextualized by Italy’s national open government strategy. The strategy was issued in December 2023 and updated in September 2024, but had not yet been officially shared with the OGP IT Community by October 2024.^[2] The Public Administration Department (DFP) and the Open Government Forum (OGF) led the OGP process along with the Italian Community for Open Government (OGP IT).

Four of the eight commitments are promising albeit with modest potential for results. 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... 1 seeks to create a voluntary lobbying register with public information on which lobbyists meet with government officials and the agendas discussed at those meetings. Commitments 2 and 4 aim to shift government culture by adding training on open government practices to the Competency Syllabus and Public Management Course-Competition program of the National School of Administration (SNA). Commitment 3 would produce public participation guidelines for public administrations.

The ambition of other commitments could be strengthened. Commitments 5, 6, and 7 aim to publish reports, guides, and policy recommendations on open government issues but do not sufficiently outline steps to translate their findings into concrete reforms. Commitment 8 aims to raise awareness of gender and intergenerational inequality but does not incorporate open government mechanisms to address these issues. By the end of the design phase, some of these commitments had not yet engaged support from all of the stakeholders that may be necessary to achieve their objectives.^[3]

The co-creation process lasted six months from February to July 2024. It began with a preparatory phase, during which the Open Government Forum and Public Administration Department identified priorities for the action plan. During three online co-creation meetings in April and May, the OGP IT Community discussed these priorities and established four overarching goals for the plan: promoting a culture of integrity, facilitating the dissemination of openness policies, enhancing transparency and open data for public value, and combating gender and intergenerational inequalities. They reflected these goals in eight commitments. In March and May 2024, they hosted five outreach webinars. The following June and July, responsible organizations collaborated asynchronously online to draft the commitments. Before finalizing the plan, a public consultation was held on 5–19 July 5on the ParteciPA platform. It gained responses from 14 stakeholders, including 6 new commitment ideas. The comments were reflected in the action plan but none of the commitment ideas were included.^[4]

Stakeholders noted that the co-creation process showed improvements, benefiting from the fifth action plan’s efforts to strengthen the OGP IT Community. They highlighted that continuous dialogue between public administrations (PAs) and civil society organization (CSOs) contributed to a cultural shift towards equal partnership in Italy’s OGP process.^[5] They also saw introduction of new entities to the Forum as beneficial, including the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Digital Italy Agency, regional administrations, and new civil society organizations.^[6] The OGP IT community had also expanded to include 99 organizations by November 2024. While there was strong collaboration between familiar faces from CSOs and PAs, challenges remained for those new to the process. There was a need to raise awareness of OGP among the wider public and clarify the co-creation process for participants beyond the Open Government Forum, as well as for the wider public.^[7] A CSO involved in the public consultation expressed the need for increased opportunities to actively participate.^[8] Other civil society stakeholders considered the timeframes for contribution too short.^[9]

During the implementation period, continued political support is essential for the action plan. For commitments aiming to develop policy recommendations, stakeholders can plan actionable steps to implement those recommendations to make binding changes to current government practices. The implementation period also offers the opportunity to increase outreach activities to strengthen administrations’ collaborative approach to commitments, bring stakeholders into the process who can help achieve commitments’ objectives, and raise wider awareness of OGP.

Promising Commitments