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Mainstreaming Participation

Giving the public opportunities to provide input into government decision-making leads to more effective governance, improved public service delivery, and more equitable outcomes. In the context of open government, these deliberations allow the public to provide feedback on the actions of governments through organized discussions. Deliberative democratic processes have seen considerable innovation in the past few decades, ranging in formality, size, and permanence.

The Open Gov Guide

The Open Gov Guide is the go-to resource for open government reformers. The guide provides concrete recommendations for policy makers, civil society representatives, and more on how to apply open government principles to real-world challenges. Readers can also use the guide to learn more about how governments at the national and local level are putting these values into practice through OGP action plans and beyond.

Learn more about this policy area in the “Mainstreaming Participation” chapter of the Open Gov Guide.

Challenge Commitments

As part of the Open Gov Challenge, the OGP Support Unit would like to recognize some of the most inspiring commitments made by participants to date. Read more about these exciting reforms on this topic below.

For a full list of Challenge commitments submitted by members, visit our Open Gov Challenge Commitment Tracker.

BRAZIL

Federal Strategy for Social Participation and Popular Education
The government aims to mainstream participation in public policy by establishing interministerial coordination of participation, revitalising engagement with civil society, consolidating use of the Participative Brazil Platform, and establishing participatory forums in all of Brazil’s federal states and the Federal District.

FINLAND

Strengthen National Dialogues

In Finland, more work is needed to increase trust through expanding the number of participants in national policy-making discussions. Under this commitment, government and civil society will collaborate to increase participation in national dialogues and make it easier to shape policies based on public input.

REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA

Increase Public Participation in Decision-Making

Moldova wants to increase the quality of consultations with the public, especially civil society representatives, by institutionalizing public participation in policy-making. The government committed to establishing and enhancing permanent consultation spaces for the public to provide feedback on issues in the public interest and revamp the e-consultation portal.

All Commitments by OGP Members

Explore all mainstreaming participation commitments from OGP members.

The following list reflects commitments submitted through national or local action plans. For more details, visit OGP’s Data Dashboard.

Filter the commitments according to three categories evaluated by the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM): ambition, completion, and early results.

  • Ambition: Beginning with 2020 action plans, the IRM assesses ambition using an indicator called “Potential for Results.” This indicator is an early marker of a commitment’s potential to yield meaningful results, based on how the commitment is articulated in the action plan and the state of play in the respective policy area.
  • Completion: For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlined in the commitment were implemented.
  • Early Results: Beginning with 2021 action plans, the IRM assesses commitment results using an indicator called “Early Results”. This indicator compares the state of transparency, citizen participation, and/or public accountability before the action plan with the state at the end of the action plan.

Commitment List

160 Commitments related to Mainstreaming Participation by all members
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Showing 5 of 163
Country/LocalityYearCommitment TitleMore
Kosovo

2026

Strengthening coordination and monitoring of Open Government Action Plan 2026 -2028 implementation

Kosovo

2026

Strengthening transparency and citizen participation through the EKomuna platform

Guatemala

2026

Digital innovation and citizen participation for the social audit of CODEDE projects

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Guatemala

2026

Leveraging and using open fiscal data.

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Guatemala

2026

Redesign of the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) Portal of the Ministry of Public Finance (MINFIN)

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What is this showing?

This table shows all commitments that match the filters selected at the top of the page. At least one filter must be selected to populate this table. Use the tags above the table to further filter by commitment quality (e.g. ambitious, complete). Click on commitment titles to learn more about each commitment. Click on “Featured” icons to access stories, where available.

Why is this data helpful? (why did we choose it?)

This table enables finding existing commitments in specific policy areas, regions, and years, as well as top-performing commitments by using the built-in table filters.

How is this calculated?

The commitment performance metrics (e.g. ambitious, complete) are derived directly from IRM reports. See the terms below for details. The Year field shows the year in which the commitment was first submitted. Icons in the Featured field indicate that a story is available on the OGP website.

Terms to know

Learn More

Data Dashboard: Explore data on how OGP members are implementing reform in key policy areas, including information on the ambition and early results of commitments

OGP Resources: Find all of OGP’s stories of reform, IRM reports, fact sheets, and other information in one place.

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Take the Challenge

Submit Your Challenge Commitment

The Open Gov Challenge is a call to action for all members of OGP to raise ambition in ten areas of open government to help strengthen our democracies.

Join hundreds of reformers around the world – in government and civil society – who are working to make their communities stronger, more open, participatory, inclusive, and accountable.