Nations to Showcase Open Government Actions in Brasilia

By Charlene Porter | Staff Writer | 13 April 2012

President Obama takes his seat for a meeting with leaders of the Open Government Partnership in September 2011 in New York.

Washington — Fifty-four countries have joined the recently created Open Government Partnership, and they will hold the first official meeting April 17–18 to demonstrate their commitments to transparency in government.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will represent the United States at the meeting, co-chairing the session with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and meeting with an estimated 800 delegates. 

The partnership was created in September 2011 with eight founding nations: Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. As the months rolled by, more and more nations pledged their intent to adhere to principles of “openness in our engagement with citizens to improve services, manage public resources, promote innovation, and create safer communities,” according to the Open Government Declaration.

“We embrace principles of transparency and open government,” the declaration continues, “with a view toward achieving greater prosperity, well-being, and human dignity in our own countries and in an increasingly interconnected world.”

Taking the pledge isn’t enough. These governments are also committed to action.

“The government reformers in those countries are working together with civil society and with the private sector to come up with concrete steps and action plans,” said Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Human Rights Maria Otero, “that will improve the transparency of the government, that will help fight corruption and that will increase the participation of citizens in the way in which the government operates.”

The rapidly growing membership demonstrates that there is a “global appetite for openness in government,” Otero said April 12 in a telephone briefing on the upcoming meeting. Partner nations represent one-quarter of the world’s population.

As the co-chairperson of a Partnership steering committee, Otero said she is seeing evolution in the relationship between governments and citizens. “It’s becoming in some cases less bureaucratic,” she said, with signs of “greater dynamism.”

Information and communication technologies are a key tool in this process, used by citizens “to comment on legislation, to participate in local budgeting processes, to carry out activities that help a government put forth policies and regulations that are more responsive to its citizens,” Otero said.

She cited several examples of the information technologies enabling greater citizen involvement in government:

• A U.S. online tool, We the People, enables citizens to make policy proposals to the White House.
• Estonia has become the world’s first government to provide for nationwide online voting in national and local elections.
• Several nations are creating a one-stop website for citizens to gain access to the most frequently used government services.

The Open Government Partnership allows governments to adopt effective ideas from other nations and to learn from each other about how to implement new tools for greater transparency. This exchange of ideas can enable governments and citizen organizations to engage in openness, Otero said, and “drive a race to the top.”