12th February 2013
Open government – based on transparency, participation and responsiveness – is needed to enable greater accountability and better use of resources for development. This has already been recognised in the UK Government’s Co-chair vision for the OGP, which has as its first objective to ‘Show that transparency and participation drive economic growth, well-being and prosperity through…
31st January 2013
At the end of October I asked civil society to join me in a shared endeavour – to create the next UK National Action Plan for the OGP. We’re now three months in – our weekly sessions on Thursdays at the Open Data Institute are well established, we’ve got a rough narrative for the plan…
6th December 2012
On the 5th December 2012, the UK Government – in its role as co-chair of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) – organised a Peer Exchange meeting for representatives of participating countries. The opening panel saw government and civil society representatives from Indonesia (the other co-chair of OGP), Mexico, Tanzania and the UK share their stories…
24th July 2012
You’d be forgiven for not noticing the release of an Open Data Strategy by the Department for International Development (DFID) at the end of June. This remarkable yet unflashy document spells out the department’s intentions for ramping up their already considerable transparency programme to increase accountability, efficiency and traceability of its work. All UK Government…
24th May 2012
The Guardian online has published a guest piece by one of the editors of this site. Do Britain’s open government initiatives lack ambition? Open Government Partnership aims for greater transparency but the UK falls short on public integrity and corporate accountability. Read more
24th April 2012
Hillary Clinton spoke about the United States’ commitment to aid transparency at the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in Brazil this week. While we applaud that commitment, we are clear that is only the first step. Now, the issue of how and when the information is published becomes critical – and that means releasing information in…
16th April 2012
A coalition of Civil Society Organisations have produced a collaborative analysis of the UK National Action Plan and wider open government policy environment. All countries subscribing to the Open Government Partnership have to submit submit a National Action Plan (NAP) based on the principles of open government that are articulated in the OGP Declaration.