Republic of Korea Design Report 2018-2020

Republic of Korea’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 a diverse range of commitments, with particular focus 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..., access to information, and citizen engagement. While the Open Government Forum Korea played a pivotal role in developing the action plan, there is an opportunity for citizens and civil society to better influence the selection of commitments and, in doing so, lead the inclusionOGP participating governments are working to create governments that truly serve all people. Commitments in this area may address persons with disabilities, women and girls, lesbian, gay, bisexual, tr... More of more ambitious initiatives.

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

General overview of action plan

Republic of  Korea’s fourth action plan aims to leverage the OGP platform to address a number of issues aligned with key domestic priorities, including reforms encapsulated in the government’s five-year plan. In particular, it seeks to respond to citizen calls for improved public engagement in decision-making. This is strongly reflected in the inclusion of commitments on the use of online and offline citizen engagement platforms, and endeavors to increase access to information in a number of areas, including the disclosure of information on food safety, local tourism, and cultural heritage resources. The plan also seeks to build on reform initiatives included in previous action plans through commitments on data disclosure and access to public services through technology.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) led and coordinated the OGP process in the country, this time alongside the multistakeholder Open Government Forum Korea (OGFK). Compared to previous action plan cycles, the operation of the OGFK contributed to better efforts to raise public awareness and ensured a more balanced representation of government and civil society stakeholders in the OGP process. The OGFK called for 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... proposals, convened multistakeholder consultation workshops, and defined commitment selection criteria. Through an open call via the OGFK’s online platform, the forum received 67 commitment proposals from government agencies, civil society, and citizens. The OGFK hosted four selection meetings and two consultations to shortlist the proposals and facilitated a multistakeholder workshop to select the final 13 commitments included in the action plan.

The strong involvement of civil society in the OGFK and its conduct of iterative consultations characterized a collaborative process where civil society and citizens were able to help set the OGP agenda in Republic of Korea. The MOIS and other government agencies largely played the role of facilitator and provided a platform for discussion. However, introducing opportunities for remote participation and utilizing additional platforms and channels for stakeholder engagement would increase participation of an even wider group of stakeholders. Similarly, including more diverse civil society groups in the OGFK could also allow discussions to expand beyond primarily Seoul-based,[i] professional nongovernmental organizations already working in areas relevant to open government.

Out of the final 13 commitments, three are based on proposals from civil society and public consultations. The remaining ten were initiated by seven different government agencies. While proposals initiated by government may have implicitly received civil society endorsement, these numbers suggest a future opportunity for citizens and civil society priorities to better influence the selection criteria of final commitments. The MOIS published broad criteria for the selection of commitments online and engaged in an iterative review process with the OGFK. However, the MOIS did not publish reasoned responses behind key decisions, including justifications for commitment proposals not adopted.

The selected commitments range from promoting open data and increasing access to information, to strengthening government 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 facilitating citizen participationAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, citizen participation occurs when “governments seek to mobilize citizens to engage in public debate, provide input, and make contributions that lead to m... More in decision-making. Unlike previous action plans, all commitments included in this plan are relevant to OGP values and all of them are verifiable. This time, the IRM also assesses that five commitments (Commitments 1, 4, 6, 10, and 11) stand to have moderate potential impact and, if fully implemented, are likely to contribute to notable improvements in the status-quo of their respective policy areas. The 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... of these commitments can be stretched further with clearer expression of the nature and scope of related activities. However, as several commitments continue to narrowly build on existing initiatives or contain activities and milestones with limited clarity of scope, the IRM assesses that the majority of commitments would have minor potential impact on their respective issues.

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

[i] The OGFK member representing the Korea Association for Local Government and Administration is based outside Seoul.