The Open Government Partnership Steering Committee Oct. 27 approved a pilot project to involve “subnational” governments in the international transparency venture.
The plan would bring in six to 10 “pioneers,” yet to be chosen, according to a plan developed by an OGP task force.
A last minute alternative, to scale up faster, didn’t gain immediate traction, according to steering committee members and OGP officials interviewed by FreedomInfo.org. The alternative, described on a recent blog post by Steering Committee member Martin Tisne and former Executive Director Julie McCarthy, could be considered later by the task force as the pilot project develops, OGP officials said.
Like the OGP, the pilot project envisions a process involving both local officials and civil society organization representatives to develop action plans containing open government commitments. The task force report is on the OGP website Oct. 21 (see bottom of page).
“Participants will receive dedicated assistance and advice from the OGP Support Unit to develop and fulfill independent open government commitments at the local level and to actively contribute to peer learning and networking activities with other subnational and national governments,” the task force report states.
An annual award will be given to celebrate the most innovative open government reform success in a Pioneer subnational government.
“In two years we would expect to see the following impacts from the pilot program: each Pioneer would develop and implement 2-3 fresh open government commitments, with an increase in the number of subnational open government commitments in NAPs led by Pioneers and Leaders to 50% of the total,” according to the task force.
The task force report said participants will be from OGP signatory countries and work in subnational areas with a minimum population of 250,000 people. OGP and CSO representatives said these limits could be fluid. Interested subnational governments will apply to joint the program.
Also to be determined later is what role subnationals would play organizationally in the OGP.
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