Conference: The Nov. 13 London Open Up! conference is being live streamed. Topics include “Open Development: Improving Service Delivery,” “Open societies, Open Economies,” and “Participation: empowering citizens to demand change.”
Open Government: The new organization “Opening Government “ held an event in London Nov. 9-10 that began with a dinner at 10 Downing Street. A large “planning group” was announced Nov. 2. “The planning group will develop the agenda for a potential MacArthur Foundation Research Network, including the design for research projects to advance and study opening government.”
Opening Government describes itself as “a multidisciplinary group of thinkers and doers currently exploring the possibility of creating a Research Network.” It is supported by the MacArthur Foundation and hosted by NYUWagner, the New York University Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
“The purpose of the project is to create and convene an interdisciplinary network of thinkers and doers (the “Network”) that could help with making the transition from closed-and-centralized to open-and-collaborative institutions of governance.”
The website also states:
In particular, the Network will aim to:
- Promulgate a new theory and vocabulary of open, decentralized, and networked democracy.
- Define a new curriculum for teaching participatory governance and problem solving to the next generation of public servants and civic innovators
- Create methods with which to gauge the effectiveness of open and collaborative governance practices.
- Design a research and action agenda to support open government innovation, including technology-enabled trial and error policy experiments.
IACC: The International Anti-Corruption Conference concluded Nov. 10 with the issuance of a declaration that mentions transparency several times, concluding: “It is up to all of us in government, business and society to embrace transparency so that it ensures full participation of all people, bringing us together to send a clear message: We are watching those who act with impunity and we will not let them get away with it.”
Book: Open Government and Targeted Transparency: Trends and Challenges for Latin America and the Caribbean,” edited by Nicolás Dassen and Juan Cruz Vieyra, has just been published by the Inter-American Development Bank. (Spanish version.)
The chapters are:
– Transparency as a Public Policy Tool, by Ezequiel Molina and Juan Cruz Vieyra-
– Open Government: The Route Toward a New Agenda of State Reform and Modernization of Public Management in Latin America and the Caribbean, by Álvaro V. Ramírez Alujas and Nicolás Dassen
– Transparency in Transfers: The Allocation of Subsidies on Gas,Transportation, and Food and Agriculture Production in Argentina, by Luciana Díaz Frers, Sandra Elena, and Estefanía Casadei
– Transparency and Control of Government Spending in Brazil: The Role of the Public Expenditure Observatory, by Thiago Alvim Camargo and Amon Narciso de Barros
– Civil Society and Transparency in the Resources of Ecuador’s Extractive Industries: The Experience of the Project “Extracting Transparency,” by Orazio J. Bellettini Cedeño
– Use of Information and Financial Sector Integrity: Reflections Arising from an Anti-Money Laundering Project in Guatemala, by Roberto de Michele
– Promoting Targeted Transparency in the Management of Access to Housing in Colombia: The TACS Program, by Marcela Restrepo Hung
– Transparency and Monitoring of Public Works Concessions in Chile, by Sonia Tschorne Berestesky
– Final Remarks, by Nicolás Dassen, Juanita Riaño, and Juan Cruz Vieyra
Open Contracts: The Berlin-based organziation OpenOil, has published a book to help nonexperts understand contracts extractive industry contracts with governments,
Open Data: Sir Tim Berners-Lee on open data in Wired on Nov. 9. Berners-Lee is inventor of the World Wide Web and founder of the World Wide Web Foundation.
Research: “The Effects of Transparency on the Perceived Trustworthiness of a Government Organization: Evidence from an Online Experiment,” an article in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory by Albert Meijer and S.G. (Stephan) Grimmelikhuijsen. The abstract begins, “Although the effect of government transparency on trust is heavily debated, our theoretical and empirical understanding of this relation is still limited.”
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