The Open Government Partnership will soon be checking in with participating governments on implementation of their national action plans and engaging with governments that have not yet submitted plans.
A survey is being prepared that among other things will ask for a description of “at least one area of progress and on challenge your government is encountering,” according to the recently released minutes of a July 27 telephone call among members of the Government and Leadership (GL) Subcommittee.
“When was the last time you met with civil society on your action plan?” is another planned question. The survey also will ask: “Would you like to be connected to another OGP government that is working on similar open government issues through their own plan?” The survey is being prepared but will be sent out soon, FreedomInfo.org was told.
A similar effort early in 2012, in which governments were asked to provide status reports on their development of action plans, was not replied to by almost half of the OGP member government at the time. (See previous FreedomInfo.org report.)
Action Plans Being Requested
The subcommittee minutes also indicate that OGP co-chairs will be writing to countries that were supposed to submit plans in April, but did not. These are Ghana, Liberia and Mongolia.
Action plans for Azerbaijan, Macedonia and South Korea are done, OGP officials said in June, but still need to be put on the OGP website. (See previous FreedomInfo.org report.)
The purpose of the co-chairs letter is to set up a phone call between those country’s contacts and the GL subcommittee to see how OGP can support them in the delivery of their plans.
Previously, OGP officials have indicated that they were working with the countries to establish a new deadline.
Those who have not submitted a plan will not be considered OGP participants. The minutes indicate that there was general agreement “that only those countries that have presented action plans are participating in the initiative.” This may result changing the OGP Articles of Governance, according to the minutes.
A number of other governments that submitted their letter of intent to join shortly before the April OGP meeting in Brazil, or later, were not expected to have submitted an action plan by April.
No deadlines for action plan submission exist yet for these 15 governments: Costa Rica, Czech Republic, El Salvador, Finland, Hungary, Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania, Panama, Paraguay, Russia, Serbia, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turkey.
The OGP has letters of intent from 57 countries.
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