Open Government is a culture of governance that promotes the principles of Transparency, integrity, accountability and participation stakeholders in support of democracy and inclusive growth (definition given in the Recommendation of the OECD Council on Open Government of 14 December 2017.
What is Open Government?
At the UN Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2015, Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change.
To achieve this, the Government of Spain approved the Action Plan for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. In that Plan, the Open Government Plans are considered lever to achieve the SDGs, for their contribution to the fulfilment of SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) and because they are an accelerator for the rest of the SDGs.
Check out the progress reports of said Plan to know the detail of the measures implemented.
La Alliance for Open Government (Open Government Partnership, OGP), founded in September 2011, is a multilateral organization made up of reformers of public administrations and civil society, whose objective is to ensure that public administrations act with transparency, promote collaboration and citizen participation, are accountable and inclusive. To achieve this goal, the OGP has established a system of action plans through which each of its members acquires concrete commitments to advance in Open Government. Compliance with these commitments is assessed by the Alliance’s Independent Review Mechanism (IRM).
Spain joined the OGP in the same year of its foundation and, since then, has developed several action plans, the implementation of which has meant great advances in Open Government.
La OECD It works with the civil service and representatives of civil society in the identification of innovative policies that advance in Open Government. Its comprehensive approach to public administration openness covers a wide range of areas: government coordination, civic engagement and access to information, budgetary transparency, integrity and the fight against corruption, the use of ICT, social networks and open data, and local development.
La Council Recommendation on Open Government includes general measures to develop, adopt and implement Open Government strategies and initiatives that promote the principles of transparency, integrity, accountability and participation of stakeholders in the design and development of public policies and in the provision of public services in an open and inclusive manner.
Within the OECD Committee on Public Governance, a working group has been created to advance the areas of Open Government and State, civic space, innovative citizen participation, transparency and accountability, and public communication. Spain is part of the bureau of this working group that collaborates with the OECD on Open Government.
Each public administration has exclusive competence in matters of Open Government, except for transparency, for which Law 19/2013, of 9 December, on transparency, access to public information and good governance establishes common obligations for all public administrations. So, the State, Autonomous Communities and Local Entities develop their own policies and have their own organs competent in matters of Open Government.
This space focuses on the General Administration of the State and its collaborating bodies with other public administrations and with civil society.
The General Directorate of Public Governance of the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Service is responsible for the promotion, coordination and follow-up of the Open Government action plans of Spain, as well as acting as a point of contact with international organizations for matters related to Open Government.
El Open Government Interministerial Group is a working group coordinated by the General Directorate of Public Governance, which includes the heads of the Transparency Information and Open Government Units of all ministries.
La Open Government Sectoral Commission is a space for coordination, collaboration and debate between the Spanish public administrations (state, regional and local) for the exchange of experiences and the development and monitoring of joint initiatives in the field of open government.
El Open Government Forum It is a space for dialogue and debate in which the public administrations (state, regional and local) and representatives of civil society participate, with an equal number of representatives.
