In 2011, government leaders and civil society advocates came together to create a unique partnership—one that combines these powerful forces to promote transparent, participatory, inclusive, and accountable governance. The Open Government Partnership (OGP) includes 75 countries and 104 local governments – representing more than two billion people – and thousands of civil society organizations.

As the OGP community has been growing and important results have been achieved, the world has experienced a prolonged period of democratic backsliding while dealing with systemic challenges like climate change, conflict, inequality, and a global pandemic. Authoritarian and populist leaders have attempted to restrict space for civil society, spread disinformation online, and attack human rights. Corruption often underpins these efforts to undermine democratic freedoms and exacerbates the challenges societies face. While the OGP community has been innovating and learning together to make governments more open, responsive, and accountable, a parallel effort has been taking place to entrench power and close governments.

OGP represents the hopeful alternative. The OGP community is made up of thousands of relentless, creative, and inspiring trailblazers, innovators, and deeply committed reformers striving to make a difference. Countries are embracing sweeping anti-corruption measures, such as beneficial ownership transparency and open contracting. Innovative methods of public participation have moved from the fringes of policy-making around the world to becoming more common, even being embraced by many skeptics.

The world has also seen mobilizations in defense of democracy on a scale unmatched in recent history. Populists and authoritarians have been unable to hold on to power at a higher rate than any other group, and elections continue to be as competitive as at any time in history. Countries like Ukraine have proved that democracies can be resilient, even in the face of extreme external and internal threats.

The opportunity of this Strategy is to ensure that OGP can translate this positive energy into lasting policy change and tackle current and future challenges. The Strategy has been developed through the most comprehensive community engagement process in the Partnership’s history, involving thousands of people from across the world. The result is a renewed vision for OGP as a more political, values-based partnership rooted in specific actions, innovations, and ideas for more open and democratic governments that meet citizens’ expectations. 

Open government as an approach means:

• Everyone can access relevant, usable, and timely information about government processes and decisions that impact their lives.

• Everyone has an equal opportunity to participate freely in shaping the public policies and decisions that impact their lives.

• Everyone has the freedom and ability to seek effective redress when the rule of law is not upheld, their rights are not respected, or their needs are unmet, without risk or harm. Public officials are accountable for their decisions and actions.

• Public resources are managed transparently, fairly, and equitably.

• Governments collaborate with civil society, academia, private sector and others to find and implement innovative and sustainable solutions to societal challenges.

• Transparency, accountability, participation, and inclusion are embedded in the culture and practice of governments at all levels.

OGP Global Summits historically provide an opportunity for representatives of government, civil society, and others to exchange experiences, best practices, and progress on open government initiatives and implementation. This will be the 8th OGP Global Summit; previous Summits have been held in the Republic of Korea (2021), Canada (2019), Georgia (2018), France (2016), Mexico (2015), United Kingdom (2013), and Brazil (2012).

THE FOLLOWING TOPICS WERE DISCUSSED

1. DIGITAL GOVERNANCE: The way forward towards trust and openness- The session explored the opportunities for technologies to address global challenges: from artificial intelligence, data-driven algorithms, and mass social networks and for transparent and participatory governance, where citizens benefit from the use of technology to exercise their civil rights and to hold governments accountable, and for governments to effectively use technology for better service delivery, openness and inclusive policy-making.

2. The Role of Open Government for Ukraine’s Democratic Resilience and Reconstruction-Since the full-scale invasion Ukraine has proved its resilience, capacity, and identity for the whole world. The session explored what decisive factors helped Ukraine to mobilize and resist, how Ukraine drives reforms and reconstruction as a transparency role model being at war, and what still needs to be done on the way to becoming an EU member.

3. Democratic Resilience: Building Coalitions to Counter Strategic Corruption- The goal of this session is to empower good governance actors across sectors and regions to respond to the threat of strategic corruption. This discussion aims to better understand the current environment in which civil society, government, media, and the private sector operate and how to most effectively use the windows of opportunity opened by initiatives such as the Summit for Democracy to advance meaningful, measurable, and sustainable anti-corruption action.
   This session builds on the Anti-Corruption, Democracy, and Security (ACDS) project at Brookings, which aims to strengthen democracy and improve global security by combating corruption. ACDS empowers good governance champions with tools and connections to foster collective action toward advancing evidence-based and measurable progress on anti-corruption
   Among other topics>