The Philippines is set to advance its open government practices as it gears up to enter a new Open Government Partnership (OGP) cycle this year.
“We envision a new OGP Action Plan that is inclusive, innovative, and game-changing—a plan developed through a process which can serve as a model for next level ambition that other OGP member countries can also replicate,” Department of Budget and Management Secretary Benjamin Diokno said. Diokno chairs the Philippine Open Government Partnership (PH-OGP) National Steering Committee.
The Philippines is a priority country for technical assistance for 2019 as it undertakes activities related to the development of its next OGP Country Action Plan, according to Shreya Basu, Asia Pacific Lead of the international platform.
Basu, who visited the country in February with two other members of the OGP Support Unit, namely, Senior Regional Coordinator Alan Wu, and Partnerships Consultant Ivygail Ong, affirmed the Philippines’ status as “a regional leader in [crafting] commitments that have a major impact in opening up government”.
“We’re very grateful for the Philippines’ leadership right from founding OGP up to now in setting new standards as we move along,” Basu said.
The OGP is a unique, multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from national and subnational governments to promote open government, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.
During the visit, the members of the OGP Support Unit highlighted prospects for the Philippines as OGP continues to expand globally.
For one, the Philippines has been identified as a hub for piloting new programs under the banner of Open Government because of its assessed readiness for “next level ambition” in the implementation of new and existing programs.
Basu, in her “OGP in 2019” presentation during the PH-OGP High Level Steering Committee Meeting, also discussed the on-going call for proposals for the OGP Multi-Donor Trust Fund initiative, a financing program which would support country-level programs with potential high impact that lead to increasing government transparency, improving accountability, and strengthening citizen engagement and government responsiveness.
Moving forward, the Philippines is gearing up for the following upcoming activities: Open Government and Participatory Governance Regional Townhall Sessions on the second and third quarter of 2019, Open Government Week on March 2019, OGP Global Summit on May 2019, and PH-OGP National Action Plan 2019-2021 Launch on September 2019
The crafting of the PH-OGP National Action Plan 2019-2021 shall be dovetailed with the Participatory Governance Cluster’s Regional Townhall Sessions. “This series of events is aimed to be one of the main national government campaigns that shall provide avenues for productive, valuable, sincere and visible engagement between government and the people at the local level,” Secretary Diokno explained.
DBM Secretary Diokno also said that the next country action plan will address priority areas identified by OGP at the international level, such as public service delivery, open contracting and inclusion in co-creation.
“We have found that leveraging on the OGP platform has proved to be very productive for our stakeholders and we are very excited for this year, in particular, because there is a strong focus on impact and innovation,” Secretary Diokno remarked.
“We are not just doing OGP to gain participation points; we want to move from nominal to transformative participation, which means felt and real impact for our people,” the budget chief added.
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