Five new civil society organization representatives and three new governments have been selected to serve on the Open Government Partnership Steering Committee.
A selection process determined the new CSO members to the 22 member Steering Committee. The committee, slightly enlarged now, is evenly divided between CSO and government members.
The chosen CSO representatives are:
– Sugeng Bahagijo, Indonesian, Executive Director of the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID), and a member of the Asia Democracy Network
– Cecilia Blondet, Peruvian, Executive Director of Proética, the Peruvian chapter of TI and Former Minister for the Advancement of Women and Human Development
– Alvin Mosioma, Kenyan, Founder and Director of Tax Justice Network-Africa
– Mukelani Dimba, South African, Executive Director of the Open Democracy Advice Centre
– Manish Bapna, American, Executive Vice President and Managing Director of the World Resources Institute (WRI)
In addition, Nathaniel Heller from Global Integrity was asked to remain on stand-by should a vacancy come up before the 2015 rotation process begins, according to the OGP announcement.
A five-person committee chose the winners from 37 original candidates, later winnowed to 14 finalists. (See previous FreedomInfo.org report.)
Three New Governments
Using a different process, the 64 governments in the OGP voted for the new government members.
Eleven governments were competing for eight spots — five incumbents and six governments seeking a seat for the first time.
The new government members are:
– France,
– Georgia and
– Croatia
Five countries ran for re-election and all won: the United States, Brazil, UK, Philippines and Tanzania. Only one sitting member, Norway, opted not to seek re-election.
Of the countries seeking first-time seats, the unsuccessful candidates were Sierra Leone and Honduras. Canada dropped out. (See previous FreedomInfo.org report.)
Countries have received Steering Committee term lengths according to their position in the ballot.
The OGP released the results of the government voting, lists of the full CS and a detailed description of the processes.
New Leadership
Exempt from the election process are the current government co-chairs: Indonesia (lead chair), Mexico (next lead chair, beginning in in October) and South Africa (will follow Mexico, in 2015).
Rakesh Rajani, of Twaweza, now the CSO lead chair, will be followed by current co-chair Suneeta Kaimal, from the Natural Resource Governance Institute.
Alejandro Gonzalez, Executive Director of GESOC, will become the civil society co-chair. GESOC is a Mexican research-based civil society organization.
The new Steering Committee will formally be in place beginning Oct. 1, 2014. Incoming members will be invited to observe the final meeting of the current Steering Committee on Sept. 25, following the OGP High Level Event in New York City on Sept. 24.
See all previous FreedomInfo.org articles on the OGP here.
Filed under: What's New