Open Government Partnership - US National Action Plan

Making the US Government More Open and Accountable

The government released its second National Action Plan in December. OpenTheGovernment.org is helping to coordinate civil society organization's efforts to make sure the government meets its commitments, and evaluate how well the government executes the plan. To help us figure out how to create better opportunities to allow people to be involved in the project, please fill out this SURVEY.

Take a look at civil society's model National Action Plan here.

See the US government's commitments in the first NAP, the open government community's work, and our recommendations at OpenGovPartners and MakeOpenGovernmentWork.

Learn more about what government openness can accomplish here.

04/25/2013

Commitment Analysis: Expert Networking Platforms

The following was written by Lucas Cioffi, Co-Founder of Bark!Best Inc

In the December release of the US government's Second Open Government Action Plan I was pleasantly surprised to read that the ExpertNet concept continues to evolve, even though progress has been sporadic since it was first announced in 2010.

02/21/2014

Commitment Analysis: Public Participation in Community Spending Decisions

The following was written by Matt Leighninger of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium

The commitment to “Promote Public Participation in Community Spending Decisions” is the most promising democracy-building element in the National Action Plan. It highlights the use of Participatory Budgeting (PB), one of the most significant, successful, and fastest-growing forms of public participation.

02/18/2014

Groups Meet with Administration's Open Government Working Group

Last Wednesday more than 20 outside stakeholders joined the regular meeting of the Administration's Open Government Working Group to discuss the new open government plans agencies are expected to create this year.

02/18/2014

Commitment Analysis: Performance.gov

The following was written by John Kamensky of the IBM Center for The Business of Government

In 2013, the Federal Government improved its Performance.Gov website by including performance information, updated quarterly, for its cross-agency and agency-specific priority goals, totally nearly 120 goals. It also included the first-ever inventory of programs, agency-by-agency.

02/06/2014

Commitment Analysis: Modernizing Records Management

The following was written by Anne Weismann of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Amy Bennett of OpenTheGovernment.org

The Administration's latest National Action Plan carries forward its commitment from the first Plan to improve the state of records management across the federal government. At its core, the new Plan has two goals: (1) improving the management of email, and (2) making it easier for the public to find records. However laudable these goals, the new commitment offers little promise of reaching them, as it requires agencies to take only small steps, and critically leaves too many things to agency discretion.

01/23/2014

Commitment Analysis: Transforming the Security Classification System

The following is written by Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.

The commitments made in the second National Action Plan concerning security classification policy have several commendable features, as well as some questionable aspects.

01/22/2014

Commitment Analysis: Privacy and Transparency in the National Action Plan

The following was written by Ginger McCall of the Sunlight Foundation.

The "privacy" commitments contained in the Obama Administration's Second National Action Plan are sorely lacking. It is impossible to truly address privacy and transparency topics without making reforms to the growing surveillance infrastructure, including the surveillance by the National Security Agency.

01/10/2014

Commitment Analysis: Open Data in the Second National Action Plan

The following was written by Matthew Rumsey of the Sunlight Foundation.

The open data commitments contained in the United States' second Open Government Partnership National Action Plan represent a reiteration of previously stated goals coupled with a few small steps towards spreading the ideals of open data to innovative international projects.

01/10/2014

Commitment Analysis: Administration Pledges, Again, to Update Nine-Year-Old Website Policy

The following is cross-posted, with permission, from the Center for Effective Government.

01/02/2014