OGP in the News – Week of October 3, 2016

A series providing a round-up of media attention received by 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 throughout the world.

A new report titled Open Data Maturity in Europe 2016, conducted by Capgemini Consulting as part of the European Data Portal project, was presented at this week’s International Open Data Conference (IODC) held in Madrid, Spain. Picked up by 17 different German news sources, including Finanzen.net, Der Tagesspiegel, and Presseportal.de, OGP was credited with Germany’s increased support for 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... policies:

With the planned Open Data Act and the accession to the Open Government Partnership in topics Open Data now gets even more support of political decision-making level in the Federation.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom published a new policy paper on its government portal announcing changes in the country’s National Action Plan (NAP) development and implementation process. Among these changes, commitments will now be considered on a rolling basis so as to “incorporate new ideas for opening up government as they [arise],” and progress reports on each commitment will be added to the U.K. page of the OGP website every six months.  Also in Europe, two articles on the widely-viewed European Commission website referenced the “OGP Toolkit” currently being developed by the French taskforce Etalab in preparation of the OGP Global Summit. According to both the articles and Etalab’s blog, the end result will be a “database of digital tools and uses made of them by organizations and citizens all over the world.”

Open data was also a newsworthy topic in the Côte d’Ivoire where AllAfrica.com reported that the Center of Information and Government Communication (CICG) created a national Open Data portal as part of the country’s NAP commitments. According to the President of CICG Ms. Konan-Payne, the new portal http://www.data.gouv.ci is designed to make information more open and accessible to citizens. More generally, a Fast Co Exist article spoke to the future impact of open data on urban development and OGP’s role in making that happen:

Cities are where this is going to happen, because of the sheer volume and density of the data they generate, and the open data movement is largely run from city to city, not country to country, through organizations like the Open Government Partnership or the Open Data Institute (ODI).

In other news, several Spanish news outlets, including Spanish daily El Universal and Terra, reported that Mexico’s Attorney’s General Office, which is helping develop Mexico’s 2016-2018 NAP, received an honorable mention by the Award for Innovation in 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 Committee for its Detainee Inquiry System. Created by a mix of both national and international agencies, such as the World Bank (WB) and the National Institute of Public Administration (INAP), this award strives to improve the quality of government functions by identifying best practices in transparency among government agencies.

Widely-read Indonesian news site Detik.com covered an event held this week in Tasmania, Australia that welcomed heads of the Parliament from Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, and Australia (MIKTA). During one of the forums, the Chairman of Indonesia’s House of Representatives Ade Komarudin invoked Indonesia’s membership in OGP to illustrate the country’s commitment to increased openness and public participation, also citing the Indonesian Parliament’s recently launched social media accounts. Other Indonesian news source Surya covered the Sustainable Development GoalsOGP countries are experimenting with open government innovations to accelerate progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 16+ which includes peaceful, just and inclusive societies... (SDGs) Expert Meeting forum in Jakarta and, in paraphrasing statements by Regent of Bojonegoro Mr. Suyoto, referred to Indonesia’s participation in OGP as a “breakthrough” in the “era of transparency.”

And last but not least, if you have been searching for the perfect metaphor to describe OGP, search no further, for Veronica Cretu – featured in this month’s Faces of Open Government – provided a brilliant response: “OGP is a laboratory where vaccines for the corruption ‘virus’ are being constantly developed.”   

Of course, we can’t catch everything in our news round-ups, so if you see we’ve missed something or think a particular story ought to be featured, please send it to jacqueline.mcgraw@opengovpartnership.org.