Open Government Monitoring
OGP Africa Meeting: Summary
January 16th, 2013
Identified Speakers:
Gilbert Sendugwa (Uganda): Coordinator, Africa Freedom of Information Centre
Paul Maassen: OGP Civil Society Coordinator
Malcolm Joseph (Liberia): Director, Centre for Media Studies and Peace Building
Steve Manteaw (Ghana): Director, Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC)
Deus Kibamba (Tanzania): Executive Director, Tanzania Citizens’ Information Bureau
George Kegoro (Kenya): Executive Director, International Commission of Jurists
Luis Esquivel: Consultant, World Bank Institute’s Access to Information Program
Alison Tilley (South Africa): Executive Director, Open Democracy Advice Center
Agenda
1. Welcoming Remarks
2. Presentations of country experiences from Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, South Africa and Tanzania (5 minutes each country)
3. Discussion
4. Next steps and closing remarks
1. Welcome and Introductions
Gilbert Sendugwa
OGP celebrated its one year anniversary 3 months ago, a global initiative launched by eight national governments, now about numbering 60. There are five members in Africa.
Of the five member countries, three have submitted action plans and the other two are in the process of doing so.
The purpose of this meeting, one of three, is to facilitate knowledge sharing, peer support, as well as civil society support of OGP. Each country will write a blog about its OGP experiences.
Paul [Maassen] is the OGP civil society coordinator and will give overview of OGP in the country as well as the role of CSO in the creation of action plans.
Paul Maassen [by phone]
I am the civil society coordinator, a position that was created to support civil society, especially within the national context. I am trying to offer support at the national level to civil society organizations to make OGP work. My position works fully on the civil society side and is independent of OGP structures.
I have the following core roles:
• Communications: website, etc.
• Working on a more intensive level with a subset of countries who need an extra push to get OGP running there.
• Making sure OGP is a truly cooperative civil society project, so that it doesn’t become dominated by national governments. Yesterday we opened up opportunities for three new civil society members to join the steering committee.
• Coordination between my [Paul’s] team, the civil society team, and OGP structures.
The core of OGP is really at the national level.
This call is about the first phase: consultation and drafting. Some problems identified with consultation:
- Only having a limited set of actors involved
- Timelines are unknown
- Croatia and Mexico had good consultation processes - draft, stop, ask questions and then rewrite plans.
Organization at the local level:
- The US has created dedicated teams to work with civil society groups
- The UK government and civil society partners work in the same office space once a week for half a day
Finishing my opening remarks, I think there is a great potential for OGP.
- 1. It is about concrete commitments
- 2. It is about a seat at the table of government that is already guaranteed
- 3. Many African countries are not eligible yet, but will be, like Nigeria. Working on these eligibility threshold criteria is already an opportunity to get more transparency and accountability.
You can always reach me at my e-mail: maassenpaul@, as well as Twitter and Skype (same as e-mail)
Question
LIBERIA: How do we avoid civil society duplication in activities?
BELIGIUM - Paul
Two things:
1. Coordination is fundamental. We should prevent duplication of efforts in general. How to do this within OGP is that the whole thing with OGP is that it’s flexible - it has few prescriptive guidelines. If you look at the consultation process, there is freedom for the government as to what to do, but civil society groups can push back.
2. Countries are so diverse. It is OK for each country to address this differently. As far as those countries that gave drafted action plans, it is important that each country draws on wide support from civil society groups. So inclusion of many groups is one way to avoid duplication of efforts, but again, each country can address this differently. We see this as a strength of OGP.
2. Country Presentations
LIBERIA - Malcolm Joseph
Liberia has a steering committee and is made up of reps from civil society and government. The Liberia OGP committee is currently developing its action plan, focusing on what the government is committed to doing with respect to the OGP focus areas. Civil society is playing an active role in our process. Inasmuch as we are not like other countries that have developed their action plan, we already have some critical legislation in place. We have a freedom of information law in place, asset declaration legislation as well as a proposed code of conduct for government officials before the legislature.
The steering committee has also developed a budget, but we strongly believe that we have to continue to look at budgetary issues.
The steering committee will also begin reaching out to the media.
GHANA - Steve Manteaw
The country was unable to prepare the action plan at the last global conference in Brazil, a source of embarrassment for the government. Much has happened since. A national steering committee has been established in August 2012 with strong civil society participation. An action plan has also been developed through a multi-stakeholder process and consultation, with the final consultation held recently in Accra. The new government (i.e. the old one which has retained power) is committed to the initiative.
On the issue of transparency, the country has committed itself to fiscal transparency, passing the fiscal transparency bill into law. Ghana is also committed to passing the Right to Information Act, together with deliberations to facilitate its implementation. Ghana is also committed to monitoring resource allocation to civil society groups and human rights organizations.
On the subject of citizen participation, the country has committed to promoting citizen participation and to providing interplay between assemblies and citizens, in order to ensure that there are feedback opportunities for government initiatives.
The government has committed to a code of conduct for government officers. This may require the amendment of a law.
On the freedom of press, committed to ensure passing of a broadcasting bill.
On question of tech and innovation, the government has committed to implementing electronic voting.
We also have the Ghana Open Data plan, looking at social justice.
The pace is slowing currently as we have a new government that is still going through motions of appointing ministers.
Questions
LIBERIA: Ghana has been struggling with freedom of info laws for years. What is the government’s professed commitment?
GHANA: Freedom of information is a priority in the Ghana action plan. Now that we have this, it provides us with the opportunity to hold the government accountable to act on that commitment expeditiously. When Ghana reports at the next meeting, it will be able to say that the Freedom of Information Act has passed.
With respect to coordination, there are six organizations on the Ghana steering committee. We have to now agree on what framework we use for coordinating civil society groups, but that will happen very soon.
[Presentations resume]
TANZANIA - Deus Kibamba
The OGP process comes to Tanzania at a time when initiatives to promote transparency and accountability were already underway. Tanzania is currently in the process of redoing its constitution. This process is actually a very good window for promoting transparency, including articles that are going to promote transparency, accountability etc.
The role of the president, the person, in the OGP initiative, cannot be played down. President Kikwete has committed to the idea that transparency can be enhanced. Note also that the current constitution has a provision which calls for transparency.
In Tanzania there is a steering committee, which includes governmental institutions and civil society organizations and the Media Council of Tanzania.
This is how we are organized thus far. This process is in my own opinion quite new - people are excited, there are a lot of expectations, but it is new in the sense that civil society institutions can engage quite effectively with not only government but also citizens. The most important stakeholders are of course the citizens. We need to go down to the people and move fast. This is a top-down initiative. First the president, then ministries, then civil society then the people.
There have been initiatives that are queuing for OGP already. For example, the Media Services Act and the Media Services Bill. People are hoping that OGP can support the government with this.
Tanzania has the right priorities, from budgetary transparency to the water sector and civil society joint-initiatives.
APRM stands for the “Africa Peer-Review Mechanism“, a self-assessment mechanism for African government. It includes processes that are quite inclusive. Taking the case of Tanzania, a section of the citizenry is pleased to see that the APRM cannot just be stopped. Processes that go through the APRM are seen as likely to succeed.
There have already been initiatives going on in civil society from before 2006. When we come into OGP now, we fit in existing initiatives. This is why the Media Council of Tanzania has come in, they can bring their experiences with earlier initiatives to the table.
KENYA - George Kegoro
The government of Kenya is committed to OGP. Leadership of OGP in Kenya is handled by the Ministry of Communication and Information and an information technology board (a government entity) as well as the Treasury. There is not a formal steering committee in place. Also not in place is a formal process of interaction between civil society groups and OGP. Consultations around issues of OGP are highly centralized around the above-mentioned government sites.
There has not been consultation with the relevant government departments. For example, the judiciary has not been consulted in the building of the Kenyan action plan.
With regard to Kenya’s “open government portal”, the data in the portal has not recently been updated. Government officials that I [George] am in contact with say it is not much utilized, and that there is not much interest from the public.
The government is committed to fiscal transparency. The Minister of Finance is implementing a transparency program.
The Government has a new constitution that requires citizen participation as a fundamental principle. As of ten years now, the country has failed to implement freedom of information legislation. The constitution enacted in 2010 does however have freedom of info provisions, but the absence of implementing legislation remains a concern. The Kenyan action plan mandates freedom of information legislation by March, but this won’t happen because of the life of the parliament. There won’t be one in place until as late as June, so the process of enacting legislation has yet to be realized.
With regard to the overall situation in Kenya regarding OGP, my view is that disparate government departments have shown leadership and shown openness while still being significantly behind in terms of commitments to transparency and accountability.
The OGP process as a process, remains un-integrated. It is not a point of reference for best practices within the Kenyan government. There is also little involvement with OGP by civil society. OGP needs more visibility and needs to be positioned more centrally as a guide for decision-making.
Questions
WASHINGTON DC - Luis Esquivel: With regard to Kenya, when the treasury of a country is involved it is usually one of the strongest agencies within government. They have a lot of leverage on other departments to implement policies. So could you elaborate more on the role of the Kenyan Treasury on the OGP Process?
KENYA: With regard to the involvement of the Kenyan Treasury: Kenya has a very prominent drive towards information technology and is trying to position itself as the African center of technology. Kenya wants to establish a “tech city” on outskirts of Nairobi. The treasury is in a strong position to influence the behaviour of other departments. I am not aware that the treasury has in fact used its potential advantage. The drive towards these technology and transparency goals is highly centralized within pockets of the government.
With regard to transparency legislation, the constitution provides for transparency and accountability, so there is great work being done by civil society to ensure that this is being followed. In response to Ghana’s comment about the contrast between us and other countries with regard to civil society participation: Kenya does engage civil society. With regard to conceiving legislation, civil society has been there. Implementation is another matter.
Some ministries try to stand out but the initiatives are at a very young stage. With more communication and resource mobilization, civil society groups will be better able to play a watchdog role.
[Presentations resume]
SOUTH AFRICA - Alison Tilley
With regard to the OGP process in South Africa, we are more at the Kenyan end of the spectrum. Although we were one of the original signatories of the OGP, the conception of the action plan did not involve significant civil society consultation. The progress on the plan has been slow, but we have a new environmental commitment and hope to see the Environment Department make a commitment soon.
The government has introduced a new information commission and powers to release information. It is hard to get transparency without informational commissions…
In terms of governance, South Africa has decided it wants to become involved in a steering committee with OGP. The projected date for this is some time in January.
The other thing South Africa has been working on is the question of a meeting between civil society and government in Africa in order to bring together civil society partners and government partners who have been working on the OGP. The initial meeting took place in Johannesburg. Sadly we would have liked to see more organizations present. A report from the meeting is available. One of the key decisions from the meeting was that Kenya (Paul Kukubo) agreed to take on hosting the meeting for OGP outreach. This meeting is slated to take place mid-2013. Paul Kukubo gave us assurances that this would not be a problem in spite of political changes going on in Kenya.
Can OGP be linked into an APRM process? There are no such processes going on in South Africa at this point, but we’re not sure what linking those two together would mean. It is tough for us to comment on this. We do have civil society interest in the OGP, which is not as formal as having OGP structure in civil society, but we will have a meeting in the next 2-3 months with key civil society groups where we will be discussing research that we have done on the use by civil society groups of access to information. There is currently little familiarity within civil society with the idea of open data access.
Questions
SOUTH AFRICA: Mr. Kukubo talked about “Connected Kenya” - could our Kenyan colleagues comment on this?
KENYA: Nobody knows anything about what Mr. Kukubo said. The picture being built is that there are many pre-existing commitments our government has made elsewhere which they then easily appropriate for OGP commitments without an organic process determining the set of issues that are to be part of OGP plans.
TANZANIA: A small point about sustainability. There is a concern with South Africa. They were in the lead of promoting transparency, and now they are complaining about being in the lead in the wrong way. Not a question, but we need to be able to plan sustainability mechanisms so that we don’t go in the wrong direction.
3. Way Forward
UGANDA - Gilbert
Important issues came up: coordination, between government and civil society and also within government; questions around making OGP real for the ordinary person; strengthening consultation; linking with initiatives; ongoing legislative processes; issue of political will also came up
Where do we move from here? How do we strengthen learning across different countries? How do we get civil societies involved?
Regional meeting: we agreed that it will take place sometime in May.
Way forward:
• Further video conference sometime in February.
• General questions to be circulated for response on mailing list.
• OGP Regional meeting projected for May.
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