Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) Releases Names of New OGP Researchers

OGP’s unique review mechanism, the IRM, takes a proud step forward as it announces its new cohort of researchers for the countries joining OGP in 2012. The IRM tracks progress on development and implementation of OGP action plans on a bi-annual basis. The IRM works primarily through bi-annual progress reports in each OGP participating country.

The hiring of this large group of researchers represents a major logistical task, given the large number of countries that joined in Brasilia in 2012. The hiring process began in May, when the IRM advertised and began selecting researchers in the 39 cohort 2 countries.  Over 280 applications were submitted from candidates with a wide range of public policy experience in governance, transparency, accountability, and other relevant fields. The IRM received many excellent applications. Researchers were chosen according to the criteria in the call for applications and vetted by the International Experts Panel (IEP), the IRM’s guiding body. Country governments had the opportunity to raise issues of conflict of interest and provide more information on the researcher, although the final decision remained with the IEP.

Orientation workshops are scheduled for the second and third week of September after which the reporting process will be officially launched. Public-facing draft reports are due early next year in order to feed into new country action plans.

The list of country researchers can be found below:

• Albania: Gjergji Vurmo
• Armenia: Artak Kyurumyan
• Azerbaijan: Kenan Aslanli
• Bulgaria: Lyudmila Georgieva
• Canada: Mary Francoli
• Chile: Andrea Sanhueza
• Colombia: Gory Suarez
• Croatia: Aida Bagić
• Czech Republic: Advokátní kancelář Šikola a partneři, s.r.o.,  Pavel Černy lead researcher
• Denmark: Mads Eberholst & Brigitte Alfter
• Dominican Republic: Carlos E. Pimentel F.
• El Salvador: Asociación Iniciativa Social para la Democracia, Jose Ramon Villalta lead researcher
• Estonia: Hille Hinsberg
• Georgia: Transparency International Georgia, Lasha Gogidze lead researcher
• Greece: Athanasios Priftis
• Guatemala: Congreso Transparente (multiple researchers)
• Honduras: Lester Ramírez Irías
• Israel: Guy Dayan & Roy Peled
• Italy: Andrea Menapace
• Jordan: Al-Hayat Center for Civil Society Development, Mai E’liemat & Amer Bani Amer lead researchers
• Kenya: Geoffrey Njeru
• Latvia: Zinta Miezaine
• Macedonia: Neda Korunovska
• Moldova: Eduard Mihalas
• Montenegro: Vanja Calovic
• Netherlands: Stichting Saxion, Frans Jorna lead researcher
• Peru: Javier Casas
• Romania: Codru Vrabie
• Slovakia: Matej Kurian
• Republic of Korea: Geoffrey Cain
• Spain: César Nicandro Cruz-Rubio
• Sweden: Alina Östling
• Tanzania: Ngunga Tepani
• Ukraine: Ivan Presniakov
• Uruguay: Instituto de Comunicación y Desarrollo, Anabel Cruz & Analia Bettoni lead researchers

Questions can be directed to the IRM at irm@opengovpartnership.org