What is Sri Lankan Civil Society Looking Forward to in Paris?

The OGP Mexico City summit of 2015 saw Sri Lanka become the 69th country to join OGP. Since then, the Sri Lankan Parliament has passed the Right to InformationThe legal right to request information from the government allows the public to follow government decision-making, participate in ensuring better decisions, and hold the government accountable. Techni... (RTI) Act and the Cabinet has passed its first OGP 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).

As an advocate for Sri Lankan OGP membership, Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL) had one key objective at the Mexico City summit – understanding how civil society could work towards developing the first NAP for Sri Lanka. With the lessons learnt from Mexico City in mind, along with the support of the Open Society Foundation and USAID, TISL convened a group of Sri Lankan civil society organisations to produce a civil society NAP. This “CSO NAP” was provided to the government (click here to read the CSO NAP) to assist in the building of the NAP.

The CSO NAP ensured that irrespective of government action (or potential inaction), civil society could document the detailed commitments and milestones that we sought from government. Without reinventing the wheel, the CSO NAP adapted the NAP template used by the Republic of Georgia. The CSO NAP and the consultations that went into producing it have heavily influenced the government’s final NAP in both substance and form (click here to read Sri Lanka’s official 2016-2018 NAP).

In light of passing the first NAP, what should we do next? The OGP Paris summit provides the opportunity to focus on three key areas – inclusivity, monitoring, and accountability.

Inclusivity – In producing the CSO NAP, thirteen CSOs formed a steering committeeThe Steering Committee is OGP’s executive decision-making body. Its role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests; establish OGP’s core ideas, policies, and ru... that drove twelve commitments on topics ranging from Health to Anti-corruption. The CSO collective, whilst diverse, are still but a subsection of Sri Lankan civil society. It is therefore essential to understand how to develop the OGP process into an ever more inclusive one. The Paris summit will provide an opportunity to understand how civil society collectives can expand over time and how individual organisations can build their capacity to apply an Open Government lens to their respective areas of expertise.

Monitoring – Whilst the OGP has its Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... – it is important that NAP commitments can be tracked by the public at large, to assess the government’s progress in achieving its Open Government commitments. The opportunity to understand how civil society in other member countries has used technology to monitor and disseminate the status of government OGP implementation will prove invaluable. A particular area of interest would stem from exploring how RTI requests have been utilised to support OGP monitoring activities.

Accountability – In driving the OGP process in Sri Lanka, civil society has been the forerunner and now has a NAP that closely reflects its demands. However, what are the lessons that can be learned from civil society in other OGP countries, in holding government to account for their OGP commitments, particularly given the fact that governments rarely live and breathe OGP? This is an important juncture in what can be described as a collaboration / co-option conundrum. In the absence of holding government to account for its commitments, civil society can be charged with being co-opted by the government in driving NAP creation, but not delivering on NAP accountability. In delivering this accountability, what are the optimal tools for advocacy, traditional media vs. new media, street protests vs. engagement with political elites? The experiences of other OGP countries will prove invaluable.

The development of the first OGP NAP in Sri Lanka has provided a platform for civil society collaboration, both amongst us and with the government. Through the implementation phase of the first NAP and the concurrent planning and development phase of the second NAP, there is a vital window of opportunity to strengthen and develop both the collaborative processes and accountability functions associated with the OGP. This will be essential in enabling the steady evolution of a rhetorical 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... to Open Government, to one that can actually prove a transformative force upon the culture of governance.