OGP: The latest OGP civil society newsletter begins:
There seems to be a mini epidemic going on in Europe and spreading to Africa of civil society forming coalitions that seek to work together and persuade governments to join OGP. I mentioned Ireland before, where a group called Active Citizen took the lead and might be able to cry victory soon. In India MKSS (the organization of Steering Committee member Nikhil Dey) is still actively pushing for membership. And by now we also have active coalitions in Poland, Germany, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Uganda eager to see their countries join and work on an ambitious action plan.
Governance: “What is Governance?” An article by Francis Fukuyama in Goverance magazine.
This commentary points to the poor state of empirical measures of the quality of states, that is, executive branches and their bureaucracies. Much of the problem is conceptual, as there is very little agreement on what constitutes high-quality government. The commentary suggests four approaches: (1) procedural measures, such as the Weberian criteria of bureaucratic modernity; (2) capacity measures, which include both resources and degree of professionalization; (3) output measures; and (4) measures of bureaucratic autonomy. It rejects output measures and suggests a two-dimensional framework of using capacity and autonomy as a measure of executive branch quality. This framework explains the conundrum of why low-income countries are advised to reduce bureaucratic autonomy while high-income ones seek to increase it.
This commentary is the beginning of an effort to better measure governance, which at this point will amount to nothing more than an elaboration of the issue’s complexity and the confused state of current discussions. Before we can measure good governance, however, we have to better conceptualize what it is.
Italy: A blog post about the transparency situation in Italy, primarily about restrictions on budget information and open data. The post is a translation of Il nostro contributo per salvare gli #OpenData originally published by Ernesto Belisario on Agorà Digitale. Most links point to documents and websites in Italian.
Spain: “What is going on in Spain?” by Access Info Europe Director Helen Darbishire.
United Kingdom: Whether staff names need to be disclosed under the UK FOI law is discussed in a blog post by Ibrahim Hasan.
G-8: The G-8 is organizing an International Conference on Open Data in Agriculture to take place on the April 28-29. There’s an open call for ideas with a deadline of March 8.
OAS: Attacks on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights are described in Washington Post column by Jackson Diehl. “At a meeting in Washington this month, foreign ministers of the Organization of American States (OAS) will consider a series of “reforms” to the commission and its office on freedom of expression that would have the effect of defunding or blocking what has been the OAS’s most visible and effective work, from the defense of indigenous groups to the protection of journalists.”
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