By Tania Sanchez
The author is the Open Government Guide Lead at the Transparency & Accountability Initiative.
Over the past months, I’ve been working on updating and expanding the Open Government Guide, and it’s been a real eye opener in terms of the immense number of ways to make governments more transparent and accountable, worldwide. It’s also made me realize just how often we in the transparency community re-invent the wheel, rather than simply adopting and adapting approaches that have been successfully pioneered in other parts of the world.
Currently covering 22 different transparency-related topics, the click-through guide enables transparency advocates to quickly identify possible courses of action, link up with others working in the field, access global standards to hold their governments accountable against, and find examples of successful models and initiatives piloted in other countries.
Several of the transparency-related topics covered in the Open Government Guide contain information that is of direct practical use to freedom of information advocates:
Topic page: Records Management
On this topic page alone, there are eight possible commitments that transparency advocates could push their governments to embrace, from adopting a government-wide policy on records management, over establishing a central digital repository to provide lasting access to government records and data over time, to developing a quality assurance strategy for open government datasets.
Imagine you want to explore one of these options, creating a Central Digital Repository. A single click takes you to a dedicated page where you find a list of nine practical recommendations for establishing a repository, discover that there are already internationally recognised standards (ISO 14721 and ISO 16363) in the field, and are able to follow links to Central Digital Repository programmes that have already been successfully implemented in Norway and New Zealand.
Topic page: Budgets
You’ve probably heard of the International Budget Partnership, but did know that there’s also a Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency and a Global Movement for Budget Transparency, Accountability, and Participation? Or a Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability Program, or an Open Government Partnership working group specifically dedicated to Fiscal Openness?
Each of our topic pages contains a list of key initiatives in the field, making it quick and easy to locate the major global players, research organizations and pace-setters in the field.
Topic page: Open Government Data
Open government data is a relatively recent topic, but that’s no excuse to re-invent the wheel. One click on the “Standards & Guidance” tab reveals that there’s already Open Data Policy Guidelines published by the Sunlight Foundation that you can draw on, an Open Data Handbook you can use, and a World Bank Open Data Toolkit you can apply.
To make life easy for you, each resource can be downloaded with a single click.
Topic page: Public Contracting
Why file FOI requests for information when you can advocate for it to be public from the outset? The list of country examples under this topic page includes the disclosure of hydrocarbon-related dealings in Denmark, a transparent e-procurement platform in Ethiopia, and contract transparency laws in India.
The Open Government Guide contains hundreds of hands-on case studies like this – have a browse!
Topic page: Right to Information
Access to information campaigners can dive into a mass of useful information and tools on this page. For example, did you know there was a global Right to Information scoring website that rates countries according to the quality of their laws and strength of their oversight bodies? How does your country perform?
And that’s just one useful, ready-made tool listed on this page that you can use for your advocacy efforts…
The Open Government Guide also has a news section covering exciting new initiatives from around the world. Recent examples include a one-stop-shop government information portal in Uganda, geo-referencing of public investments in Bolivia, and a law in Canada that (finally) requires local hydrocarbon and mining companies – including large privately held ones – to publicly disclose the payments they make to governments around the world.
So what are you waiting for?
Stop re-inventing the wheel today and start discovering the Open Government Guide for yourself.
P.S.: The OGG is also available in Spanish and French.
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