Open Government Partnership Global Summit

The purpose of this session will be to generate insights into how the OGP platform in particular and the open governance field in general can be strengthened to deliver on universal goals of public safety and access to justice. In order to do this, the session will bring together key OGP, justice, and security protagonists from both government and civil society to discuss successes, challenges and opportunities for strengthening outcomes related to security and access to justice based on an open governance approach.

Moderated by the co-chairs of the Legislative Openness Working Group and hosted by the President of the Senate of Mexico, Sen. Roberto Gil Zuarth, this high-level session will allow parliamentary leadership from around the globe to share information about experiences and challenges in implementing commitments to parliamentary openness. This session will also explore solutions for how OGP can deepen engagement the legislative branch.

Innovation is one of the principles of open government. Technology has a great potential to transform civic participation and therefore the way we currently understand democracy. The current incorporation of technology in citizens’ daily lives has made governments question the way they interact with and reach out to their constituents. Governments are now moving towards improved, more efficient, and citizen-centered manners to implement technology improving their performance and responsiveness. As new digital technology becomes more accessible, and organizations like the Open Government Partnership push for the adoption of it to improve governance, governments begin to explore new ways to incorporate it in their policies and processes. This context allows for a new opportunity in which citizens, companies and academia are more heavily involved, providing tools, expertise, and ideas, moving, through civic technology, towards building more open governments.

Transparency, accountability, civic participation and innovation are cross-cutting principles that should be present in all sectors and across all levels of government. Mexico’s main goal as chair of OGP is to deepen the impact of the principles of open government at the subnational level in order to promote a more efficient and responsive government. Furthermore, as the role of local governments is central in achieving public participation, it is necessary to share best practices amongst local governments that have been pioneers and are currently leading open government efforts. It is also within these levels of government that the linkage between authorities and civil society becomes most apparent, ensuring that open government reaches as many citizens as possible.

The Open Government Partnership structure and mandate present a unique platform and model for the kind of cooperation, capacities, and commitment required to successfully monitor the implementation of Goal 16 of promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels; the goal understood as key to the achievement of all SDGs, and the goal most aligned with OGP principles. This session is designed to engage participants OGP members, multilateral partners, and stakeholders in framing the role of OGP in the 2030 development arena; identify and define benchmarks and methodologies to track progress on Goal 16 implementation; and, assess individual and collective capacities to monitor OGP implementation in alignment with the SDG implementation overall. The session will be a highly interactive open discussion chaired by UNDP and WRI, expected to kick-start the development of a robust methodology for Goal 16 monitoring, and identify volunteer countries for pilots.

This session will discuss the importance of disclosing natural resource data to advance governance of the sector and emphasize issues that remain currently opaque such as contracts, beneficial ownership and environmental data. Panelists will highlight how the EITI process is currently being used in the different country contexts and discuss why transparency is critical to fight corruption in the sector.

The Mexican Atlas of Economic Complexity provides important inputs for formulation of policies that promote productivity and a balanced regional development. Its building is based on an intensive open data methodology.

This session intends to gather privacy experts, open data practitioners and FOI advocates to explore the privacy concerns that have emerged across the global community of open data practice. Big data technologies bring powerful utility to open data practice, but they also bring new privacy and security implications for citizens. These concerns should not be left unaddressed. To ensure the sustainability of Open Government endeavours, we need to find ways to integrate the right to privacy into our policies and practices. At the same time, data protection is often cited as the reason for reluctance towards genuine Open Government approaches. Conversely, a careful process to define standards for privacy protections in public sector data management and frameworks that help us balance the Right to Information and the Right to Privacy could add strong support to the broader Open Government agenda.

We would like to stimulate a clarifying and instructive debate with experts from the Open Government and the Privacy field. We will address the relationship between Right to Information and Privacy, speak about experiences with privacy assessments on the governmental level, and present global perspectives on privacy, such as data privacy-conscious Germany, to identify concerns and possible solutions.

Sport is a multi-billion dollar business and a source of joy for many people around the world, whether participating, attending or watching events. Sports' intricate ties to political and private interests means corruption remains a real and constant risk. The recent corruption scandals at FIFA have highlighted weaknesses in sports governance that undermine public trust. Keeping sports clean is therefore a global imperative.This session will look at such issues as how governance principles can drive a more open and accountable contracting and sponsorship process, and the role that those inside and outside the ‘sport’s family’ can play in making sport a force for good. Participants will look at the full range of open government tools and discuss how these can strengthen transparency in sports.

Open Governance is premised on citizens, civil society and governments working together in a constructive manner which is mutually beneficial, with shared interests and goals. This is aligned with Social Accountability initiatives, and specifically the ‘constructive engagement’ approach of the GPSA. The Panel will discuss and rshare the learning and challenges from Social Accountability practices in this area, drawing on the experiences of GPSA Partners and Grantees.

Governments spend over US $9.5 trillion every single year through contracts. Yet, in many countries, this information is unavailable for public scrutiny. This high level policy dialogue will focus on showing how Open Contracting can make all public contracting truly public, and how it is contributing and can have further incidence on governments’ development agendas and on the everyday lives of citizens around the world.

The 2030 Agenda will set the course towards a better and more inclusive world for the next fifteen years. Open Governments will be fundamental in helping achieve trustworthy, effective, and inclusive institutions that engage with civil society and leverage data to monitor and deliver sustainable development goals at a global scale. In this context, the global community has worked to develop the international Open Data Charter that sets the founding principles for a greater coherence and increased use of open data across the world. The Open Data Charter recognizes the value of having timely, comprehensive, accessible and comparable open data by default, that can help improve governance and citizen engagement, as well as foster inclusive development and innovation, in support of the Global Goals. In this scenario, this plenary will showcase various countries, cities and international organizations that will adopt and endorse the Charter as a mechanism to enable sustainable development through the accessibility and use of open data.