The Open Government Partnership Steering Committee has put France in line to become the government co-chair of the 65-nation multilateral organization.
The other contender for the job was Georgia.
The Steering Committee met in Mexico April 21-23 on this and other topics. (Look here for agenda and future minutes.) An OGP subcommittee was scheduled to meet, too, for a discussion of Azerbaijan’s membership. (See previous FreedomInfo.org report.)
Mexico is the current lead chair and announced that the next Open Government Partnership Global Summit will take place in Guadalajara, Mexico, October 27-29, 2015. The planned Twitter hashtag is #OGP15
Following the Mexican chairmanship, South Africa will serve a one year term, beginning in October 2015, but likely will not host a global summit now that the OGP seems to have moved to a pattern of holding them every other two years (London 2013, Brazil 2011). France will take over in October, 2016.
An moderately critical independent report on South Africa’s progress on meeting its OGP commitments has been released.
France is a newer member, having joined in May of 2014 and is still developing its National Action Plan, due by June 30, 2015. The eventual report on its progress toward fulfilling its National Action Plan commitments will be prepared by reviewers Irène Bouhadana and William Gilles of the Institut du Monde et du Développement pour la Bonne Gouvernance Publique (IMODEV).
Thierry Mandon, Secretary of State responsible for State Reform and Simplification, attached to the Prime Minister Manuel Valls, is the representative of France to the OGP and serves on the Steering Committee. The French government issued a statement lauding its qualifications.
The 22-member OGP Steering Committee is made up of equal numbers of members representing government and civil society. Two CSO representatives serve as OGP co-chairs: Suneeta Kaimal, Deputy Director of the Natural Resource Governance Institute, and Alejandro Gonzalez, the Director of the Gestión Social y Cooperación (GESOC).
In another development, the OGP published a statement by the government of Turkey issued a statement reaffirming its commitment to the OGP. “We would like to start again the OGP process with full enthusiasm and make considerable progress to achieve our goals,” according to Turkey, which had fallen behind on meeting its OGP deadlines. (See previous FreedomInfo.org reports.)
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