Celebrating OGP Champions in the Americas

In one week, the Americas Open Government Community will gather in San Jose, Costa Rica, to talk, learn, debate and work together during OGP’s Americas Regional Meeting. We will start out on November 17 with a civil society unconference, followed by a two-day event with over 40 breakout sessions, workshops, panels, book presentations, plenaries, and a data expedition. 

#OGPSanJosé is the Open Government Partnership’s third regional event in the Americas and is organized by the government and civil society of Costa Rica; the government of Mexico; Hivos Costa Rica; and 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 Support UnitThe OGP Support Unit is a small, permanent group of staff that work closely with the Steering Committee and the Independent Reporting Mechanism to advance the goals of the Open Government Partnership..... The Open Government Partnership currently includes 17 participant countries from the Americas region that are each committed to making open government reforms in close coordination with civil society. The meeting comes at an important moment as 70% of the region’s countries have presented new national action plans in the past 12 months. The remaining are due to do so in the following year. There will be an opportunity to join country-focused sessions on each of the 17 participants, where the emphasis will be on learning from each other to help generate a ‘race to the top’ in the region.  

Our overall goal is to recognize and celebrate open government reformers from the public sector and civil society, including the implementers who are making OGP commitments happen on the ground. We hope both events will provide open government champions from the region with space to highlight good practices and successful initiatives, discuss the challenges faced, and establish support and peer exchange regional mechanisms.

Early on in the organization process, the planning committee (composed of government and civil society representatives, and for the first time, citizens unaffiliated to organized civil society) decided that in true OGP fashion, the event’s agenda would be completely crowsourced. The end result is a Regional Meeting co-constructed with our community that addresses their main concerns and requests.

Civil society representatives will have a whole day to reflect on advocacy opportunities during the Civil Society Day’s unconference. We are working with Social-TIC, Hivos Costa Rica and Costa Rican civil society to ensure an event as successful and inclusive as last month’s AbreLatam. Government OGP points of contact often express an interest in having a similar gathering aimed specifically at public servants; so during November 17 we will also host our first ever OGP Point of Contact camp.

The Regional Conference will be opened by the Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solís, who will host a town hall meeting where everyone is encouraged to participate and ask questions. We have 47 parallel sessions confirmed that cover a wide range of topics, such as: local governments, 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..., public participationGiving citizens opportunities to provide input into government decision-making leads to more effective governance, improved public service delivery, and more equitable outcomes. Technical specificatio..., open parliaments and private sectorGovernments are working to open private sector practices as well — including through beneficial ownership transparency, open contracting, and regulating environmental standards. Technical specificat... More.  Session organizers include citizens, multi-laterals, civil society organizations, governments, OGP’s Support Unit and Working Groups.

During November 18 and 19 we will also hold a Data Expedition session.

In order to properly celebrate our champions, we want to create an environment that fosters horizontal dialogue and opportunities to learn, network and exchange. In that sense, San José will give us spring like weather and the organizers will provide coffee throughout the day and lunch so no one goes hungry. We have even established an informal dress code (no suits or ties!) so everyone will be relaxed and comfortable.

The website for the event is http://ogpsanjose.org/ (available in English here). You will be able to find information there regarding both events (Civil Society Day and the Regional Meeting), the venue, the agenda, weather, discounted hotels, dress code, etc.

We encourage you to follow and participate in event proceedings through Facebook, Twitter (@OGPSanJose) and our hashtag #OGPSanJosé. The plenaries and one track of breakout sessions will be live-streamed on the event website.

IMPORTANT: For those of you attending the event we urge you to pre-register here. Registration closes on Tuesday November 11th.

For any questions, please send an e-mail to: ogpsanjose@opengovpartnership.org.

For questions related to civil society participation, please contact Emilene Martínez (emilene.martinez@opengovpartnership.org); for questions related to the participation of government officials please contact Alonso Cerdán (alonso.cerdan@opengovpartnership.org).

¡Nos vemos en San José!

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.