Ogp

Open Government Partnership: through thorns to changes As far as 4 years agoalmost nobodyin Ukraine knewof such initiative as Open Government Partnership (OGP). Now under the auspices of the Partnership in Ukraine a number of significant positive transformations take place. There are some of them: direct dialogue between the authorities and civil society is partially established, mechanism for access to public information is introduced, and anti-corruption legislation is being implemented.

Joining the Partnership provides clear understanding of the direction for Ukraine and what reforms shall be conducted to make the executive authorities more transparent and accountable to the public. To force the government to be honest we shall not re-invent the wheel and develop new strategies again. We

already have ready “recipes”, confirming their efficiency. They are used already in 66 countries, which joined the Initiative. To build a dialogue between the public and government the country should join the Partnership at the top level and together with civic activists develop the Action plan and implement it, reporting on the level of performing the prescribed items. Ukraine started implementation of them in 2012.

OGP: restarting However, not everything, mentioned on the paper, has been done.

Unfortunately, during the first years of joining the Initiative the work was restrained. The issue on OGP disappeared from the agenda of the authorities and public, and proactivity of civil society institutes in regions was far from perfect. International experts noted that for 2012-2013 general indicator of the OGP Action plan implementation was only 60%. The main difficulty was that legislation, needed for

open governance, was adopted, but used less than halfway.

So, in the middle of the last year activists, in particular, an anti-corruption organization Transparency International Ukraine, decided to restart the OGP in Ukraine. Because we already had considerable experience in implementing many items of the Initiative Action plan, a lot of activities were performed in the sphere of anti-corruption legislation, openness of public data and e-governance development.

Thus, we have decided to give the OGP Initiative the second chance, because it was a real possibility to make the country better, the state institutions more open, and interaction with them - more comfortable for every citizen.

Assistance of regions The cornerstone of the Initiative implementation in Ukraine was supposed to be awareness and knowledge of the citizens in the region on Open Government Partnership.

Citizens from distant corners of

Ukraine shall understand what advantages they have, what tools to influence on self-government they receive and how correctly they can use them for their benefits. That is why the project “Open governance is possible for the country regions” to implement the OGP Initiative Action plan in the regions. It was performed with the support of the British Embassy in Kyiv.

Since the period for implementation of the OGP Action plan for 2014-2015 expired, it is high time to think over the initiatives which shall be implemented within open governance initiative for the next two years. The public had a vi-

sion that the Plan, written in Kyiv, would not correspond to the challenges, faced by the citizens all over Ukraine. So, they decided to develop the strategy, which can help the country to achieve transparency of the Government, involving some regions.

From regions to the Cabinet of Ministers The first strategic session, where representatives of local NGOs were involved into development of the OGP Action plan for 2016-2018, was held in Dnipropetrovsk. Together with civic activists the session was attended by the represen-

OPEN GOVERNMENT AND UKRAINE Open Government Partnership, OGP – is a multilateral international initiative, formally launched on September 20, 2011 during the session of the United Nations General Assembly; it includes 69 countries. Ukraine joined the global initiative in September 2011.

20

60% Implementation of the first Action Plan on Open Government (2012-2013)

civil society organizations are engaged in the implementation of the Action Plan

2-7% 2-7% Implementation of the second Action Plan on Open Government as of March 1, 2016 (2014-2015)

fulfilled: 12 – 41%

12-41%

Fulfillment of commitments

86%

in process: 13 – 45% still to be fulfilled: 2 – 7%

13-45%

removed: 2 – 7%

FULFILLED COMMITMENTS:

Web portal for income, asset and expenditure declarations of public officials

Amendments to the law of Ukraine On Citizens’ Appeals, the mechanism of electronic petitions has been implemented

Pilot version of the Unified state portal for administrative services

National information and education campaign “Public Libraries are Bridges to Electronic Government”

Access to the information in the open data format

Change of procedures of interaction between the government and the civil society

Compliance with EITI

OGP IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO IMPLEMENT NEW OPEN STANDARDS FOR PARTNERSHIP

OUR SUCCESSFUL PRACTICES Section «Partners» in the Action Plan 6 thematic working groups with co-heads from civil society and the government

2014-2015

Action Plan for information support

80% of the commitments included are proposed by the civil society

2012-2013

Online regional discussions Small coordinating council as a mechanism of operative management

The Action Plan has been adopted by the decision of the National Round Table broadcasted in the Internet

The Action Plan entered the list of top-10 Action Plans according to the Annual Brazil Summit

tatives of the authorities and local self-government. According to the research, among others this region became the first on introduction of anti-corruption innovations, the authorities’ openness, as well as introduction of ProZorro e-procurement system, using of which considerably reduced corruption component in public procurement sphere. In addition, the region was leading in transferring administrative services in Internet. “Of course, this quality level of management in the region caused great interest of both the authorities and local self-government and the public”, - noted an analyst of TI Ukraine Olesia Arkhypska.

“Dnipropetrovsk region is one of the first, which has joined the Open Government Partnership Initiative in 2012. And at that time and now our chief aim is providing possibility for any citizen of the region to receive services in convenient time and form. Very bright projects IGov and Virtual office (e-services. adm.gov.dp.ua) allowed achieving this aim. From the other side, without mutually beneficial cooperation and effective communication of business, citizens and authorities effective development of the region is impossible. Here the e-application project “E-contact” (e-contact. adm.dp.ua), e-petitions (e-petition. adm.dp.ua), ProZorro introduction work were very helpful for us”, - explained Head of the Administration for information technologies and e-governance of Dnipropetrovsk regional state administration such high evaluation of the region.

The session results became significant achievements of its participants on optimization of business

process, allocation of local budgets, promotion of civil society development, evaluation of officials’ work quality, which are integral part of the Initiative Action plan. The event was presented by about 20 central and local mass media.

Discussing strategy at the frontline One more region, which decided to hold a strategic session on OGP planning, became Luhansk region.

Or rather, the current regional center - Sievierodonetsk. Contrary to Dnipropetrovsk region, this region was determined by TI Ukraine analysts as the weakest one in issues of openness and transparency of the authorities. The war significantly influenced this Ukrainian territory: for a long period of time, the focus of both the lcal authorities and communities was shifted from the

issues of development, corruption fight, e-governance to other, more pressing problems. How to survive?

What to eat? How to re-build the economics of the region in conditions of war? The restless situation influenced the specifics of the event holding. The participants from other districts of Luhansk region had to cross numerous checkpoints, waiting for hours in line, to reach Sievierodonetsk. And co-organizers from Kyiv reached the town by several trains - direct railway link is missing there now. On the date of the session there was no Internet connection in the town, and, unfortunately, the organizers could not provide online broadcast of the event with the Head of the Department of the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine Nataliia Oksha.

However, active and patriotic cit-

izens, the basic resources of the region now, had a lot of ideas on improving their towns and villages, cooperation with local and central authorities, assets of the communities, corruption prevention. The event was attended by about 70 participants, instead of 50 registered.

And majority of them wanted to propose useful ideas and successful solutions for the OGP Action plan to make this document practical and relevant for all regions of Ukraine. All developments are summarized, processed by the event co-organizers and the experts will design a separate list, which soon shall become the issues of the Action plan for the Open Governance.

At the sessions special attention was paid to ProZorro system - an e-platform, which shall become obligatory for all procurement of the central authorities since April

01, and for all procurement of the state customers since August 01.

After holding a number of regional events, dedicated to promotion of the system in the regions, entrepreneurs and civic activists demand introduction of the system as soon as possible. And after the words of the Prime Minister of Ukraine Arsenii Yatseniuk that this year the state is planning to save UAH 5 billion, activists in different cities and towns demand ensuring indicators of procurement and saving local budgets. And entrepreneurs, who experienced the benefits of the system, hope to take part in transparent public bids actively.

The OGP Action plan has been implemented by 80% But the work within the project was not limited by introduction of open governance standards in the regions. Recently at the national level there was presented a report on Open Government Partnership Initiative in 2014-2015. In a half a year the score of the OGP implementation significantly increased over the last years. In May 2015 international experts complained that the OGP Action plan was im-

plemented only by 15%. Now this indicator increases to 41%. The Plan is partially implemented by 45% (in comparison with 39%), and 7% - not implemented. Another 7% issues were removed from performance. In general the Action plan has been implemented by 86%.

Among performed initiatives the experts noted a web-portal of declarations on income and assets of officials, amendments to the Law “On Citizens’ Appeals”, pilot version of the Unified State Portal of administrative services, educational campaign on public libraries, access to information in format of open data, correspondence to the EITI standards and, of course, procedures for interaction of the government and civil society. “Openness of public bodies work is the key to effective state policy, and absolute transparency of communications between the authorities and civil society will allow changing old approaches and receiving qualitative feedback”, said Hennadii Zubko, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, Head of Coordination council for the Open Government Partnership Initiative at

the session. And an expert of the Independent Reporting Mechanism on the Open Government Partnership Initiative Dmytro Kotliar said that Ukraine should disclose information on public procurement, including of the state enterprises, and strengthen transparency in mining.

Principles and mechanisms of open governance should be extended to the parliament and judiciary. So the government, local authorities and activists have work for the nearest future. According to the draft Action plan, proposed by the participants of Kyiv session, the priority is improving public services, integrity level in public administration, more effective administration of the state resources, increasing corporate accountability etc.

The biggest achievement in this cooperation for Ukraine awareness of the citizens, that the OGP is a unique mechanism to introduce new standards of equal partner cooperation between the authorities, civil society and international organizations. And this cooperation is leading us to a new democratic state.