Perhaps a civil society organization has mentioned the opportunity to be a member of the OGP alliance or maybe you attended one of our informative webinars. If that generated your interest to be a member, you probably want to know more information about what Open Government is and how it can benefit your local government administration.
What is Open Government?
Open Government is a new paradigm based on the principles of transparency, participation and collaboration that seeks to transform the relationship between citizens and the State after the exhaustion of traditional models of public administration.
OGP’s promise is to do government differently, opening it up by bringing (back) citizens into the design, implementation and monitoring of government. Not just for the principle of it, but most importantly to make government more effective and efficient, less corrupt, more trusted. In short, to make the government deliver better for the people. It is more important than ever that citizen engagement and public participation are enacted properly to provide the necessary impetus and oversight for good governance (1).
How does it work?
Upon joining OGP, governments work with civil society to co-create two-year action plans, with concrete steps – commitments – across a broad range of issues. This model allows civil society organizations and direct citizen engagement to play a role in shaping and overseeing governments.
Support
To learn more about OGP watch this video: https://youtu.be/A3UQzIQnr4
What are the benefits?
Some of the benefits that inspire local governments to join the Open Government Alliance are:
- Deepening democracy by bringing good governance to the people.
- Improving the delivery of state institution services.
- Getting citizens to have a greater say in the provision of these services.
- Receiving support and also some healthy pressure to do this transformation from the OGP Support Team.
- Being part of an International Network with common goals.
¿Are you ready to get started?
Method 1: Coordination Meeting
Objective: The objective of this coordination meeting is to bring together internal allies of the administration or other public institutions to apply to the local OGP and subsequently carry out the process of co-creation of the plan and implement it.
Participants: Public officials from offices related to open government issues – such as those in charge of citizen participation and data – and other public institutions who potentially would like to make a joint application.
Expected result: Have an internal open government promoter team.
