Countries with open governments, open economies, and open societies will increasingly flourish, becoming more secure and more peaceful in the 21st century, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.
Clinton spoke last Tuesday in Brasilia, Brazil, at the opening of the first high-level meeting of countries party to the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a multilateral initiative originally championed by the US and Brazil that is devoted to supporting national efforts to promote transparency, fight corruption, strengthen accountability and empower citizens.
The 55 members of the OGP, representing more than a quarter of the world’s citizens, have each published a national action-plan to outline how they will make their governments more transparent and strengthen democracy.
Ghana, one of the earliest signatories to the OGP since its inaugural year in 2011, is struggling to pass a Freedom of Information Act that the country’s civil society believes will enhance transparency in governance and help combat official corruption
Clinton acknowledged that simply signing up to the ideas of open government will not be enough.
“What we have to do is make a convincing case that those of us who have joined up to the Open Government Partnership really mean what we say. It’s not enough to assert that we are committed to openness. We have to deliver on the commitments that we have made.”
She said tools that previous advocates of open information could not even dream of are currently available.
“ We are releasing enormous quantities of public data, making complex budgets available online, and connecting leaders with citizens — as we have seen in this past year of the Arab awakening.”
She said Chile, Estonia, Spain and Tanzania have created websites to make government data on everything — from crime statistics to political party financing to local budgets and procurement, accessible to the public; and Bulgaria and Croatia have set up systems to explain in clear language to their citizens how public money is spent.
“The cure for corruption is openness,” Clinton said; adding that by belonging to the Open Government Partnership every country is sending a message to their own people that they will stand for openness.
A representative of the Brazilian Embassy in Accra, Ms Lara Lobo Marteiro, explained to civil society representatives gathered at the US Embassy information room — where they watched the session live — that a key benefit of OGP membership is the opportunity for countries to learn from each other’s experience.
“For instance, Brazil is a relatively young democracy but we’ve learned to do our politics by the force of powerful arguments rather than through physical violence, and it is something we can share with Ghana,” Marteiro said.
The USAID Democracy and Governance Officer, in Accra, Mr. Ben Kauffeld, disclosed that the United States government has committed US$5million over four years to a programme that helps build capacity of civil society organisations, thus enabling them to engage government and politicians more meaningfully.
A number of CSOs, including CDD Ghana and CODEO, will be empowered to effectively monitor the December 2012 elections.
Kauffeld disclosed also that the programme is helping local government authorities to map out their districts to establish the demographics and types and concentration of various economic activities, to enhance their mobilisation of revenue as well as properly plan their development programmes.
Another objective of the four-year programme is to support the Electoral Commission in establishing a training centre in Ghana that will help in the training other African electioneering officials, who could learn from the Ghanaian experience.
The OGP is a new international initiative aimed at securing concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, increase civic participation, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to make government more open, effective, and accountable. A multi-stakeholder International Steering Committee, co-chaired by the United States and Brazil in its inaugural year, is comprised of government and civil society representatives from around the world.
By Emmanuel KWABLAH
