Faces of Open Government – Rosario Pavese

In this section of the OGP newsletter, we feature open government champions both from government and civil society, and ask them about their OGP experiences. Here is what they have to say: 

How does open government make a difference in peoples lives?

Open Government makes a differences in people lives as it empowers citizens, providing them with tools to effectively exercise their rights through knowledge, public information and collaborative work. When citizens and communities recognize their power through participation, governments cannot look to the other side anymore.

How have you benefited from exchanging ideas with your government?

We have benefited by having a new channel of dialogue with our authorities, that we did not have before OGP. As civil society organizations working around 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 fighting corruption it is often hard to create strong bonds with government officials, as they tend to perceive us as watchdogs. But working through the OGP alliance that barrier can be broken, and new channels for mutual understanding are open.

Describe one OGP 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... from your country that you are proud of.

I believe the Argentinean action plan has many interesting commitments regarding technology, such as the open data platform (http://datospublicos.gov.ar/), but it lacks commitments around transparency and access to information. Hopefully this will be something we can solve with more political will in our second 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....

How are you working to overcome challenges in opening up government in your country?

We are working in alliance with other NGOs in Argentina. This is key for us. We also try to consult NGOs from other countries and share concerns and possible solutions.  We have learnt a lot from the creation of the first action plan, and are eager to implement all we have learnt in the creation of the second action plan, which we hope to be more ambitious. One of our major challenges this year is to promote the participation of a diverse range of NGOs, and to launch an awaraness campaign to help the citizens get to know OGP. 

Rosario Pavese is a political scientist (Universidad de Buenos Aires), currently finishing its Master Degree in Electoral Analysis and Administration, at Universidad Nacional de San Martín.  She is part of Poder Ciudadano since 2007, and the Director of Political Institutions and Government since 2011. She coordinates various programs, such as the participation of Poder Ciudadano in 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 Argentina (OGP), and Municipios Transparentes (Transparent local governments), which seeks to enhance local democracy through citizenry participation.