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 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. 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... commitments may build on existing efforts, identify new steps to complete ongoing reforms, or initiate an entirely new area. OGP’s 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. Civil society and government leaders use the evaluations to reflect on their progress and determine if efforts have impacted people’s lives.

The IRM partnered with Luciana Tuszel to carry out this evaluation. The IRM aims to inform ongoing dialogue around the development and implementation of future commitments. For a full description of the IRM’s methodology, please visit https://www.opengovpartnership.org/about/independent-reporting-mechanism.

This report covers implementation of Cabo Verde’s first action plan (2018–2021). In 2021, the IRM began to implement a new approach to its research process and the scope of its reporting on action plans, approved by the IRM Refresh.^[1] The IRM adjusted its implementation reports for 2018–2020 action plans to fit the transition process to the new IRM products and enable the IRM to adjust its workflow in light of the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on OGP country processes.

II. Action Plan Implementation

The IRM transitional results report assesses the status of the action plan’s commitments and the results from their implementation at the end of the action plan cycle. This report does not re-visit the assessments for “verifiabilityOGP commitments should be clear and specific enough to enable measurement of their progress. Verifiable commitments include specific activities that can be monitored. Following an action plan’s subm...,” “relevanceAccording to the OGP Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should include a clear open government lens. Specifically, they should advance at least one of the OGP values: transparency, citizen partic...,” or “potential impact.” The IRM assesses those three indicators in IRM design reports. For more details on each indicator, please see Annex I in this report.

2.1. General highlights and results

Cabo Verde’s first action plan contained three commitments on (1) ease of doing business, (2) public infrastructure, and (3) 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.... Commitments 1 and 2 had limited relevance to the open government values of civic participation, 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, or public accountabilityAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, public accountability occurs when ”rules, regulations, and mechanisms in place call upon government actors to justify their actions, act upon criticisms ... More. During implementation, all three commitments saw low levels of completionImplementers must follow through on their commitments for them to achieve impact. For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlin... More, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and limited resources. Consequently, Cabo Verde’s first action plan resulted in few changes to open government practices. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cabo Verde took advantage of the option to extend their implementation period by one year, ending in 2021.

Implementing 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... 2 led to the publication of calls for tenders and the development of guidelines around public infrastructure planning. Commitment 3 led the state technology company (NOSi) to establish the backend tools for an open data portal. Yet the portal was ultimately not launched within the implementation period. Overall, Cabo Verde’s first action plan resulted in the development of some foundational technical and organizational infrastructure for opening government. However, these tools are not yet implemented to the extent that Cabo Verdeans have greater information or influence in government decision-making.

Cabo Verde did not constitute a multistakeholder forum with civil society during either the development or implementation of this action plan. Therefore, Cabo Verde continues to fall below the minimum level of public influence required throughout the action plan cycle.[2] Cabo Verde has also not yet established an OGP repository with information on the progress of open government reforms.[3] Due to these factors, Cabo Verde continues to act contrary to OGP process. Cabo Verde must establish a multistakeholder forum or space with equal representation of civil society and government members to avoid procedural review under OGP policy.[4] Cabo Verde should also prioritize establishing an OGP 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 meet OGP’s minimum requirementsAll OGP participating countries are expected to adhere to the Participation and Co-Creation Standards. Each Standard includes clear and measurable minimum requirements that all OGP participating count... and provide transparency around open government reforms.

2.2. COVID-19 pandemic impact on implementation

COVID heavily impacted implementation of Cabo Verde’s action plan. Most of the new platforms (including the open data portal, land registry, and public infrastructure map) were not released due to budgetary restrictions and the prioritization of actions to combat the pandemic.[5] The repository for publishing documents related to the OGP was not realized either, also due to budget constraints. Tourism accounts for up to 25% of Cabo Verde’s GDP and it is estimated that the economy shrank 14.8% in 2020.^[6]

Commitment 3, which aimed to establish an open data internet portal, was heavily impacted by the pandemic. The IT public company Núcleo Operacional da Sociedade da Informação (NOSi) was the agency that would support the commitment, but it had to prioritize needs arising from the pandemic. NOSi was responsible for developing several internet portals and new systems to deal with the effects of the pandemic and sanitary management needs, such as a health information website for the public, issuing certificates and authorizations, and information management for health management actors like the government and the WHO.

[1] For more information, see: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/process/accountability/about-the-irm/irm-refresh/.

[2] IRM, “IRM Guidance for Meeting the Minimum Participation Requirement During Co-Creation” (OGP, 13 Jul. 2021), https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/irm-guidance-for-meeting-the-minimum-participation-requirement-during-co-creation/.

[3] IRM, “IRM Guidance for Online Repositories” (OGP, 1 Mar. 2020), https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/irm-guidance-for-online-repositories/.

[4] OGP, “Procedural Review” (accessed Feb. 2022), https://www.opengovpartnership.org/procedural-review/.

[5] Harold Tavares (Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister of Cabo Verde, Prime Minister’s Office and OGP Point of Contact), interview by IRM researcher, 8 Nov. 2021.

[6] World Bank, “A Pandemia da COVID-19 colocou desafios sem precedentes à economia de Cabo Verde e expôs as vulnerabilidades do Modelo de Crescimento” [The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Posed Unprecedented Challenges to Cabo Verde’s Economy and Exposed the Vulnerabilities of the Growth Model] ( 9 Sep. 2021), https://www.worldbank.org/pt/news/press-release/2021/09/09/the-covid-19-pandemic-has-posed-unprecedented-challenges-to-cabo-verde-s-economy-and-exposed-vulnerabilities.