Representatives of the Open Government Partnership Steering Committee Visit Mexico City

October 18, 2017 – Mexico City, Mexico – On October 19-20, 2017, members of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Steering Committee and of the Support Unit will travel to Mexico City as part of an information gathering process following the withdrawal of civil society from the OGP Technical Tripartite Secretariat in Mexico.

During June’s Steering Committee (SC) meeting, the body expressed its support for all Mexican stakeholders, and resolved to appoint two representatives, one from government and one from civil society, to serve as OGP envoys to engage with Mexican stakeholders with the objectives of meeting with government and civil society representatives to gather an update of events since the June SC meetings; providing a report back to the full SC; exploring what support the SC and OGP international community could provide to each of the actors, and exploring how to best take forward Mexican representation on the OGP Steering Committee.

The delegation is composed of Mr. José Manuel Ruiz, Secretary to the Executive Board of the Council for Transparency, Government of Chile, and Ms. María Baron, Global Executive Director of Directorio Legislativo, as the civil society representative, both from the Steering Committee. They will be joined by Mr. Alonso Cerdan and Mr. Jaime Mercado from the Support Unit. The delegation will meet with relevant stakeholders, including the ten civil society organizations that withdrew from the Tripartite Secretariat, as well as Minister Arely Gómez González, the Minister of Public Administration, and Dr. Francisco Acuña Llamas, President Commissioner of the National Access to Information Institute, the other leads of the Technical Tripartite Secretariat.

The role and engagement of the two Steering Committee envoys will be limited to information gathering through conversations with all stakeholders engaged. They will not play an investigatory role. The outcomes and information that derive from the visit will only serve for the purposes considered as appropriate by all the Steering Committee members.