Policy paper

Open Government Partnership Summit statement

Updated 1 November 2013

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

© Crown copyright 2013

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People around the world are demanding more open, accountable and responsive governments. Open governments empower citizens; reduce corruption; drive inclusive economic growth and prosperity; and engage civil society. Transparency is an idea whose time has come.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) – made up of civil society and governments – supports domestic reformers around the world who are committed to opening up their countries. We are meeting in London on 31 October and 1 November to celebrate the progress we have made in the 2 years since the OGP’s inception; to learn from each other and to transform our shared ambitions into action.

Since our summit in Brasilia last year:

  • Finland, Hungary, Argentina, Ireland, Australia, Malawi and New Zealand have joined the OGP, bringing us to 61 countries covering 1.94 billion people around the world
  • 7 countries have published their first national action plans, taking the total number of open government reform commitments to 1,078
  • The Independent Reporting Mechanism has published its first 8 progress reports on founding countries’ national action plans – a testament to the value of the OGP as a community of accountability

At the London summit we will agree:

  • partnerships with 4 leading multilateral organisations – the Inter-American Development Bank, the OECD, the UNDP and the World Bank - to support OGP implementation at the country level
  • working groups on Open Data, Legislative Openness, Fiscal Openness, Access to Information and Openness in Extractives– to help countries create and implement more ambitious open government commitments as part of their OGP action plans
  • to work together on promoting the aims of open governance within the Post-2015 development agenda UN process

37 governments have made ambitious new commitments to open government, covering a wide range of priorities, including commitments to:

  • radically open up government data to boost entrepreneurship, growth and accountability
  • open up their governments further to fight corruption and strengthen democracy
  • greater fiscal transparency to ensure taxpayers can follow their money; and work towards a common global reporting standard for natural resource transparency, ensuring that payments for extractives and natural resources are transparent and used for public benefit
  • further empower citizens, transforming the relationship between people and their governments

Charting a vision and making firm commitments is a significant start but what matters more is action. Ensuring governments deliver on these promises, through genuine collaboration with civil society, will need to be the OGP’s main focus in the years ahead.

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