Republic of Moldova Transitional Results Report 2019-2020

Introduction

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 has partnered with Diana Mirza-Grisco 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 the implementation of the Republic of Moldova’s fourth action plan for 2019-2020. In 2021, the IRM will 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.

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.

General Highlights and Results

The Republic of Moldova’s fourth action plan had six commitments. The major themes in the action plan were access to information and promotion of 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... use by citizens, strengthening the mechanisms of collaboration with civil society, improving the involvement of the Republic of Moldova’s diaspora in decision-making processes, and developing citizen-centered public services. All the commitments were linked to actions from other national strategies, and policy documents.

By the end of the action plan, five commitments saw either substantial or full completion, while one saw limited progress. The high levels of implementation were partly due to the fact that some activities continued from the previous action plan (2016-2018) and focused on existing government activities and strategies which had their own schedules. Among the factors limiting the progress for certain activities were lack of financial resources, lack of political will, unclear institutional arrangements, the COVID-19 pandemic, and lengthy legislation processes. Furthermore, the activities in the action plan generally lacked specific, measurable deliverables, which made it difficult to assess their level of completion or determine the extent to which they met their intended goals.[2]

Because of the prevalence of routine government activities, the action plan did not result in major changes in government practice. Most commitments maintained the status quo from the previous action plan period, in particular around open data and access to information.[3] For example, while 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 resulted in the restructuring of the portal date.gov.md, the Republic of Moldova’s overall open data publication practices remained unchanged compared to the previous action plan. Commitment 6, however, saw the expansion of the Republic of Moldova’s network of paralegal aids, which could lead to greater access to free legal aidMore and better information about aid helps partner countries and donor institutions plan and manage aid resources more effectively, parliaments and civil society to hold governments accountable for t... for citizens, particularly in rural areas. In addition, once fully completed, other activities from this commitment could improve access to modernized services in remote/rural areas and increase citizens’ satisfaction with government services.

COVID-19 Pandemic impact on implementation

The COVID-19 pandemic had a limited impact on the implementation of the Republic of Moldova’s fourth action plan. Some milestones which called for informational and training sessions were held online. For example, under Commitment 1, the Ministry of Health, Social Protection and Labor re-focused its information activities to design national campaigns, informational materials, television, and radio spots that addressed different aspects of the pandemic (prevention, symptoms, treatment, etc.). During the lockdown period (March – May 2020), the Electronic Governance Agency stalled the piloting and institutionalizing of the unified centers for providing governmental administrative services under Commitment 6, and the implementation of these activities were delayed. Beyond the OGP action plan, civil society noted that during the pandemic (and especially during the lockdown) access to information worsened.[4] Concerns were raised that the measures passed by the parliament on 17 March 2020 to introduce the State of Emergency included a blank check of “other necessary powers”.[5] For example, the government did not proactively publish all relevant information at the beginning of the pandemic,[6] and health sector procurement[7], discussed in the IRM Design Report,[8] became less transparent during this time.[9] Moreover, some pandemic restrictions hindered access to public information,[10] and the review of the law on access to information did not move forward.[11]

The Republic of Moldova’s OGP multi-stakeholder forum (the National OGP Coordination Committee) continued its activities during the pandemic as planned, though remotely. Civil society organizations also launched a website[12] to monitor procurements in the Republic of Moldova’s health sector during the pandemic.

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

[2] OGP, Republic of Moldova Design Report 2019-2020, pages 24-25, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/moldova-design-report-2019-2020/

[3] Interview with Iana Spinei, 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 International Moldova, 27 October 2020.

[4] Interview with Tatiana Sava, researcher at Expert-Grup Independent Think Tank, 5 November 2020; interview with Iana Spinei, Transparency International Moldova, 27 October 2020.

[5] The Rule of Law in Moldova’s Age of COVID-19, Radu Mirza, Justice First Policy Brief, Freedom House, January 2021, https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2021-01/Rule-of-Law-in-Moldova%27s-Age-of-COVID-19_Eng.pdf

[6] Timpul.md, https://www.timpul.md/articol/50-de-persoane-din-sistemul-medical-sunt-infectate-cu-virusul-covid-19-dintr-un-total-231-de-persoane—guvernul-ascunde-informaia-despre-numarul-persoanelor-aflate-in-stare-grava-154024.html?fbclid=IwAR1L7n3s5sKkmaxsTiuxxi3UXhG9fJqr3wvUHDNmOb8z6WNyav8Fstr_Bj8

[7] According to the Ministry of Finance, measures were taken by the Government to ensure the transparency of the public procurement processes linked to the prevention and fighting of COVID-19: Government Decision no.493/2020 on the approval of additional transparency measures regarding public procurement aiming to prevent, reduce and eliminate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was approved; the drafting of the Report on the conducted public procurement aiming to prevent, reduce and eliminate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, with the indication of the beneficial owners of the contracted companies. The report is available in Romanian on the website of the Public Procurement Agency: https://tender.gov.md/ro/content/raportul-privind-achizi%C8%9Biile-publice-efectuate-%C3%AEn-vederea-prevenirii-diminu%C4%83rii-%C8%99i-1

[8] OGP, Republic of Moldova Design Report 2019-2020, pages 24-25, https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/moldova-design-report-2019-2020/

[9] Radio Europa, https://moldova.europalibera.org/a/achizi%C8%9Biile-din-s%C4%83n%C4%83tate-mai-pu%C8%9Bin-transparente-pe-timp-de-pandemie/30585777.html

[10] Freedom House, Moldova: Address the Lingering and New Challenges Facing Access to Information, https://freedomhouse.org/article/moldova-address-lingering-and-new-challenges-facing-access-information

[11] Media Forward, Why access to information is still a problem in Moldova, https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/Ionel_and_Gotizan_FINAL_EN.pdf; Freedom House, Moldova: Address the Lingering and New Challenges Facing Access to Information, https://freedomhouse.org/article/moldova-address-lingering-and-new-challenges-facing-access-information

[12] COVID-19 Procurement, https://www.tender.health/