Expanding the Reach of OGP in Francophone Africa: Côte D’Ivoire

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In October 2015, during the Global Summit of 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) in Mexico, Côte d’Ivoire officially became the international initiative’s first sub-Saharan Francophone member. This is an important step for this booming country, which is emerging from memories of a post-electoral crisis that still remain fresh.

President Alassane Ouattara, who aims to make Côte d’Ivoire an emerging country by 2020, has implemented a number of initiatives in the domain of 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 good governance, including through OGP membership. OGP is an international multi-stakeholder initiative launched in 2011 which aims to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance – in a spirit of collaboration between government, non-state actors, civil society organizations, and the media.

Led by the Ministry of Industry and Mines, and under the supervision of the Office of the Prime Minister, Côte d’Ivoire is currently in the process of developing its first National 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... (NAP). To this end, in January 2016 the Ministry of Industry and Mines organized a two-day workshop for civil society, 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, and government actors with the financial support of the British Embassy. This offered a range of stakeholders the chance to learn from the experiences of other more advanced OGP countries, including Liberia and Tunisia, and to become more familiar the steps, process and techniques for developing a NAP.

Over the past few months, regular meetings led by the Prime Minister, and involving  representatives from all the technical ministries, demonstrate the engagement of the entire Ivorian government. The OGP Technical Committee, which includes representatives from key state structures as well as civil society, private sector, and academia, has its road map and has also organized multiple meetings around the preparation and development of the NAP. In mid-April the Technical Committee also organized a series of regional consultations in six regions of the country, including Abidjan, Abengourou, Bouaké, Korhogo, Man, and San-Pedro.

In the spirit of OGP more broadly, these consultations demonstrated the 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... of all the actors – in particular government, non-state, and private sector – to working together toward a more open and accountable government. Côte d’Ivoire’s membership in OGP represents an important opportunity to improve relations between state structures and civil society, and to build the capacity of civil society – while simultaneously advancing a priority of the government.

The implementation of OGP will help to improve the availability of information and data to the public, to engage citizens and civil society organizations in citizen monitoring, and to achieve greater transparency and responsibility in government. As there is increasing demand for such efforts from development partners and companies, who prefer to invest their resources in countries where there is greater transparency and good governance, the OGP process will serve to benefit all those in Côte d’Ivoire – as well as neighboring countries.

In addition, as Côte d’Ivoire is one of the pillars of Francophone West Africa, it can play an important role in inspiring other Francophone countries to follow it in joining OGP. This partnership offers an improved understanding between citizens and the government, and can inspire greater trust and confidence between disparate actors, which would certainly be a welcome development throughout the region. The vision of a truly transparent and accountable West Africa, where neighboring countries support one another in the shared objective of an open government, could soon be a reality.