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Looking Back on Great Ideas for OGP Action Plans

Retomando buenas ideas para los planes de acción de OGP

Abhinav Bahl|

Five years in, bold ideas continue to be the currency of OGP, and sit at the heart of its race-to-the-top model. In this spirit, we curated a blog series focusing on great ideas for inclusion in National Action Plans (NAPs), with the goal of inspiring governments to include bold open government reforms. With over fifty countries in the process of finalizing their latest NAPs, we want to take a moment to reflect back on the series and highlight the big ideas that came out of it.

The series kicked off with a piece by Marie Lintzer of the Natural Resource Governance Institute and Christina Tecson of the World Bank, who co-lead  the OGP Openness in Natural Resources Working Group. They outlined three ways in which resource-rich countries can improve natural resource governance so that the benefits of resource extraction accrue to citizens.

Our second piece was written by David Robins of the Open Budget Initiative, and looked at how budget processes can be strengthened by increased citizen participation. He concluded his piece by making three budget transparency and public participation recommendations for countries to consider as they draft their NAPs.

On International Women’s Day, Laura Neuman of the Carter Center took a look at open government through the lens of gender to highlight how action plans can engage women’s voices and ensure a gender-sensitive approach to opening government.

Jorge Florez of Global Integrity looked at how fiscal governance treasure hunts where citizens are tasked with accessing and using fiscal information and then reporting back on the challenges they face can be used to trace how public money is spent with the goal of uncovering fraud and waste.

Georg Neumann of the Open Contracting Partnership outlined how open contracting can help governments deliver on the promise of more effective and trustworthy government, and stimulate a better business climate.

Our latest piece, written by Victoria Lemieux of the World Bank and Anne Thurston of the International Records Management Trust, looked at how bridging access to information and open data with effective records management can enhance a country’s ability to achieve its open government goals and priorities.

We hope these ideas prove useful as you develop and finalize your country’s newest NAP. However, the ideas don’t end here. We will continue to highlight innovative approaches to public policy challenges that we encounter, so watch this space. We particularly want to hear from government and civil society reformers working on the frontlines to make governments more effective and responsive to their citizens. If you have a big idea you’d like to share, give us a shout –  tweet us using the hashtag #OGPNAP!

Open Government Partnership