The Government of Malawi on July 4 indicated its desire to join the Open Government Partnership.
The letter of intent starts the membership process. “Malawi will officially join OGP when it presents a National Action Plan and endorses the open government declaration,” according to the OGP announcement.
Malawi scores 12 on the 16-point OGP eligibility scale. In the access to information category, Malawi gets three out of four possible points for having a constitutional provision on access to information. The government in February delayed plans to introduce a FOI bill. (See Freedominfo.org report.)
President Obama on March 28 met with the heads of state of four African countries – Cape Verde, Malawi, Senegal and Sierra Leone – indicating afterwards that all four hope to join the OGP. (See previous Freedominfo.org report.) Of these four, Cape Verde is the only other currently eligible country. Senegal is 6 points away from qualifying. Sierra Leone needs three more points.
There are 85 countries qualified to join the OGP.
Malawi’s membership will bring to 60 the number of countries participating the multilateral initiative begun officially on Sept. 20, 2011, in New York with 46 members. (See previous Freedominfor.org report.)
Recent sign-ons were Australia and Ireland. Russia in May became the first member nation to withdraw its membership.
All Freedominfo.org reports on the OGP are here.
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