The Paris Declaration, which was presented at the OGP Paris Summit in December, will encourage cooperation between countries and civil societies to promote open government on a global scale. The Declaration lists twenty-one collective actions in which governments can take part and share experiences. “Actions are concrete cooperation, output-orientated and will produce tangible results”, the text of the Declaration states.
OGP members can sign up to one or many collective actions on an online platform . From December 10 and throughout 2017, they will start working on implementation and sharing experience, the text explains. “The OGP Support Unit and Steering Committee will help each group with peer exchange opportunities and coordination.”
21 collective actions
The twenty-one collective actions are the result of contributions made by countries on November 8-30. Among the 21 actions, we can find the following: Open public procurement; Ending abuse by anonymous companies; Innovation and data-driven approaches to expose and fight corruption; Transparency on lobbying; Tracking climate relevant policy implementations and results, Supporting Justice for All through a focus on measurement and data collection; Collaborative data infrastructures; Guiding principles for open data policies; and Creating an Open Source Software policy – to name only a few. “These topics have been identified as emerging priorities in many OGP National Action Plans and subnational commitments and reflect interest from governments and CSOs at recent regional meetings and in the OGP Steering Committee”, the Declaration states.
“It recognises that over the next five years our partnership will have to be assessed through our ability to produce reforms that actually materialise in the lives of our fellow citizens. Everyone will have to produce national action plans”, French President François Hollande said in his keynote address in Paris. “We need to renew our common pact.” France co-chaired the OGP in October and organised the 4th OGP Summit which took place in Paris in December.