The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a global effort to make governments better by promoting transparency, empowering citizens, fighting corruption, and harnessing new technologies to strengthen governance. OGP was launched in 2011 in New York by eight governments, and overseen by a steering committee of governments and civil society organizations. The UK, as a founding member of the OGP has signed the OGP Declaration and has published an open government National Action Plan making commitments which will be audited by an independent mechanism currently being developed.
From April 2012 the UK is co-chair of the Open Government Partnership.
At the core of the OGP is the idea that open government requires input from both civil society and governments. This website has been established as a hub to support civil society engagement with the OGP in the UK
Transparency + Participation = Accountability, Effectiveness, Efficiency
The OGP is based around five OGP grand challenges. These are:
- Improving Public Services
- Increasing Public Integrity
- More Effectively Managing Public Resources
- Creating Safer Communities
- Increasing Corporate Accountability
Behind the site
This site has been set up rather hastily to have somewhere to start sharing information and news on UK civil society engagement with the OGP ahead of the 2012 OGP meeting in Brasilia. It is currently hosted by Open Rights Group, with content written by Tim Davies, Javier Ruiz and Tim Hughes.