Italy Design Report 2019-2021

Italy’s fourth 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 relevant national challenges like 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 and 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... regulationGovernment reformers are developing regulations that enshrine values of transparency, participation, and accountability in government practices. Technical specifications: Act of creating or reforming .... It also builds on previous commitments on 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 introduces measures to enhance civic participation and a culture of open government. Commitments would benefit from more targeted objectives and thus fewer milestones. 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... can continue to improve through early and ongoing dialogue between government and civil society.

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. Italy joined OGP in 2011. Since, Italy has implemented three action plans. This report evaluates the design of Italy’s fourth action plan.

General overview of action plan

High political turnover and distrust in public institutions remain a systemic issue in Italy. The action plan proposes some ambitious commitments relevant to the national context, including the establishment of a register of ultimate beneficial ownership and a lobbying register. Measures to enhance civic participation are a new area of focus, while thematic areas such as open data, a culture of open government, transparency, and digital services and skills are carried over from the previous action plan.

There were more opportunities for early civil society participation in co-creating the action plan than last time, although the level of participation did not change. However, the change in government midway through the process delayed the adoption of the plan. Co-creation could be strengthened through increased coordination between government and civil society and more regular meetings and interaction with Open Government Forum representatives.

For the most part, commitments reflect initiatives proposed by public agencies, but also respond to civil society priorities on lobbying transparency and beneficial ownership. Despite taking on board previous IRM recommendations, several commitments remain too broad due to a proliferation of milestones (anywhere between 5 and 41), which are small commitments in themselves, rather than steppingstones in the implementation of a high-level initiative. This also restricts the assessment of the overall impact of 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.... This action plan contains no potentially transformative commitments (but it does have one potentially transformative cluster of milestones), fewer than the previous action plan did.

The action plan also includes initiatives from a diverse range of bodies, from the local and regional level, along with other agencies and bodies such as the Italian Chamber of Commerce (Unioncamere). Both government and civil society have stated that the design of the actions in Commitment 1 on monitoring confiscated assets is a positive example of government and civil society collaboration.

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