The OGP at Year One: Off the Ground - So Where Next? | TechPresident

"Last week marked the one year anniversary of the launch of the Open Government Partnership. So what has been accomplished so far… and where are things headed? The OGP’s biggest accomplishment has been to augment issues of transparency, technology and openness in the international arena. This is not to claim that the OGP has magically created more transparency, improved government use of technology or fostered greater openness, but it has caused politicians and policy makers — or more importantly, the machinery of various governments around the world to think about these issues — sometimes productively, and sometimes awkwardly, to talk about how they are engaging or promoting those ideals. The very fact that once a year (or every six months, depending on your perspective and country) politicians and public servants have to come together and update each other and a board of civil society stakeholders on progress towards their OGP action plans will hopefully mean that such thinking becomes something more tangible. This, along with the continued questions around the commitment of some of its member governments to the principles they signed on to, will be one of the key ways the OGP will be judged in year two...  Herein lies the other big challenge for the OGP in year two. Having managed to get this large organization off the ground, can the OGP pilot itself somewhere useful, while keeping its various stakeholders onboard?"