23rd March 2016
Open Government NI’s second event as part of Imagine! Belfast’s festival of politics and ideas took place in the Mac. Such a pity to see the condition of the building as it is now, covered in scaffolding and looking quite sad but it didn’t deter from our morning, hearing about and practising the concept of Participatory…
23rd March 2016
Imagine ! The Belfast festival of ideas and politics came to an end last weekend. From all accounts a very successful week. Opengovni had two events, both of which were well attended. Both were interesting and entertaining and both introduced new ways of looking at the problem of governments withholding both information and data. The…
10th March 2016
Following the publication of the Commission on Freedom of Information’s findings and ahead of the publication of the UK’s 2016-18 open government action plan, the Campaign for Freedom of Information and Open Government Network have written to Matthew Hancock (Minister for the Cabinet Office) proposing a commitment to extend Freedom of Information to public service…
18th February 2016
http://sluggerotoole.com/2016/02/18/open-government-people-can-re-engage-with-politics-and-politicians-may-be-able-to-break-the-deadlock/ David McBurney and Jonathan Bell (NI Open Government Network) argue that the growing gap between citizens and government can be bridged by a more open, generative approach to involvement in government monitoring and participation in policy making. There is a growing distance between people and their representatives and a general disaffection with politics. We are faced…
9th December 2015
To help celebrate International Anti-Corruption Day, Transparency International UK have just launched a new video promoting why transparency matters. Visit the #TransparencyMatters website
9th November 2015
This post has been adapted from Cat’s submission to the International Development Committee on their Inquiry “Sustainable Development Goals” As a youth activist leader from Ghana recently reflected, broad base ownership for the new set of global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been overwhelming. Compared to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which were prepared largely by…
1st November 2015
29th October 2015
On Tuesday I was fortunate to moderate an in depth discussion, convened by OpenTheGovernment.org, to share practice on how civil society can best work together and with government on the OGP. Below is OpenTheGovernment.org’s summary of the workshop. I’ll be posting some of my own thoughts here shortly. On October 27, 2015, OpenTheGovernment.org hosted a workshop on…
29th October 2015
In my last post from the Open Government Partnership summit in Mexico this week I talked about the ‘magic of OGP’ being the focus on the collaborative development of national action plans. The trouble is that both the words ‘collaboration’ and, even more so, ‘magic’ hide a lot. As a result they aren’t that helpful for those not directly involved…
28th October 2015
A particular focus for a number of us who have made the trip over to Mexico City for the OGP Global Summit is how the OGP can be deepened to involve subnational governments and civil society. Indeed, tomorrow we’re hosting a session on “Taking OGP Subnational”, with participants including Colm Burns (Chair of the Northern…