This year’s Open Government Partnership (OGP) Summit was refreshingly hosted in an artistic, colorful, and relaxed space – at the Telliskivi Creative City, in Tallinn – inviting participants for inspiring side conversations, make new connections and re-encounter old collaborators promoting open government, transparency and accountability, inclusive civic space, trust, and democracy.
The Summit proved that space matters and that for democracy to thrive we need more spaces that are inclusive, safe, respectful, equalizing, inspiring, and effective.
While it was mission impossible to join all the excellent parallel sessions, I was especially pleased to hear discussions applying an intersectionality lens. For instance, debates about how to transform the fight against corruption, included themes of dis- and misinformation, protection of activists, political capture, tax justice, trust building, and climate justice. USAID presented its ambitious new anti-corruption approach, which includes collaboration building, raising the cost of corruption, and the promotion of political integrity. Besides focus on national level action, also strong focus on transnational corruption.
Intersectionality is an approach TAI members pursue everyday and is reflected in two new publications: "Defending democracy from illicit finance and kleptocrats" is a scoping paper that will include action recommendations for the philanthropic sector. The other new paper explains why we need Green Accountability integrated within climate responses. Both publications will be launched this week!
The Summit also had a strong focus on inclusive participation – especially for those that are most left outside the system, for instance due to their race or gender –, the protection of environmental defenders, civic space, and civil society resilience. In general, there was a sentiment that open government and democracy can only walk hand in hand and that it was time to embrace complexity, build trusted collaboration among progressive parts of governments and civil society to demonstrate open government does deliver to people and the Planet.
At TAI we couldn’t agree more: if we want democracy to be our firewall against unequal distribution of power and resources, we need to strengthen and defend it collectively, with perseverance, and long-term investment in those who are the frontlines - including those working in exile.
Blair Glencorse, founder and Co-CEO of Accountability Lab was selected as the new Co-Chair of the Open Government Partnership alongside the Government of Kenya for the period 2024-25. As discussions centered on the new OGP strategy, Blair said that the time was ripe for the multilateral partnership to leverage all the new connections being made and galvanize progress on key policy goals.
"The next year is going to be a critical one as the global context is not as conducive as it could be to open government, but with a new strategy and some of the new ways of working that OGP is putting in place, there's a real opportunity to grow this movement with the networks emerging and new voices coming through." Blair added that OGP remained the "hopeful alternative" in the governance space.
OGP has set its sights on reforms in anti-corruption, civic space, climate, gender, fiscal transparency, media freedom and digital governance. We're wishing the new Co-Chairs all the best as the new agenda unfolds and at TAI, will be working with our community to be constructive partners in the process!
You can listen to selected sessions at the OGP site 2023 OGP Global Summit: Tallinn, Estonia (opengovpartnership.org)
Here you can read more details about commitments born at the Summit and other Summit related resources:
OGP Steering Committee Tallinn Commitment (opengovpartnership.org)
EU and Open Government Partnership launch “Partnership for Democracy and Accountability” (opengovpartnership.org)
Kenya and Blair Glencorse to Lead International Partnership on Open Government (opengovpartnership.org)
All photos of the event available on OGP’s Flickr account
Recordings of the live streamed sessions available on the OGP Youtube channel
Remarks by Estonian PM Kaja Kallas and OGP CEO Sanjay Pradhan
Information about the recently launched Open Gov Challenge
Publications including the new Open Gov Guide and the latest IRM-Local Report
The full list of this year’s Open Gov Award winners
Information on the expansion of OGP Local in 2024