The summit of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) will be held in London. It is an opportunity to drive policy change in key areas.
The OGP is a group of 60 countries, including the US, the UK, Brazil and six African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa) that have made a commitment to work with civil society to promote more transparency, participation and accountability. The idea is that civil society and government work together to produce national action plans, including a number of specific commitments about what they will do to make government more transparent, more participatory, more accountable.
Our campaigning organisation ONE has been an enthusiastic supporter and a constructive critic of the OGP right from the start. In 2011, we blogged about the New York launch. In 2012, we attended the OGP summit in Brazil and sought to shape the UK's national action plan, encouraging the UK government to realise prime minister Cameron's ambition of making the UK government the most transparent and open in the world. In 2013, we began to engage with African governments, encouraging them to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the OGP.
For ONE, the OGP is an opportunity to drive policy change in key areas – including transparency in aid, budget, extractives, tax and beneficial ownership, and open data – and to promote a coherent development agenda and narrative about enabling citizens to follow the money.
If people can't follow the money, then government isn't open. If people can follow the money, they can hold governments to account and help to ensure that public monies are invested in meeting citizens' needs and promoting socially inclusive growth, rather than being wasted and lost to corruption.
The real action takes place at country level but the London summit can play an important role – allowing open government enthusiasts from around the world to share their insights and to learn from each other as they (and we) tackle similar challenges.
Alan Hudson is policy director for transparency and accountability at campaign group ONE.
The full version of this article is available on the ONE website
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