The Steering Committee is OGP’s executive, decision-making body whose role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests, establish OGP’s core ideas, policies and rules and oversee the functioning of the partnership. The Steering Committee is comprised of 22 members, 11 members from national governments and 11 from civil society, with parity established between the two constituencies. 

The OGP Steering Committee convened on the sidelines of the 6th OGP Global Summit in Ottawa, Canada. A working-level and a ministerial-level meeting took place on May 29. In line with OGP’s disclosure policy, we share the minutes of the meeting with the broader OGP community a few weeks after each Steering Committee meeting. Please find below the minutes for the May 29 meetings, which summarize the discussions and decisions taken.

For more information about the OGP Steering Committee, please visit the webpage here.  

Table of Contents 

• Session I. Mid-Year Implementation Update
• Session II. OGP Local Strategy Update
• Session III. Overview of IRM Refresh 2.0

• Session I. Mobilizing the Collective Leadership of the Steering Committee
• Session II. Future Strategic Directions - OGP Local Strategy
• Session III. Future Leadership of OGP
• Closing Remarks

1. Since Ecuador recently joined OGP in 2018, the priority has been to raise country-wide awareness around OGP and build support for its first OGP action plan. Ecuador was very engaged during OpenGovWeek and hosted a wide range of events and social media engagements with strong participation from high-level government officials, including the Vice-President and General Secretary of the Presidency.   
2. The priority in the Philippines has been to pilot a more advanced form of co-creation support. The SU hosted a series of commitment-design workshops with both members of government and civil society in attendance and integrated the IRM into the workshops to help address the issue of designing strong and ambitious commitments ahead of the delivery of their 2019 - 2021 action plan. 
3. Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) was designated inactive in OGP on 5 December 2018 for acting contrary to the OGP process by not delivering an action plan for three consecutive cycles. Through the collective efforts of the SC and SU, BiH was able to submit their first OGP action plan on 27 May, and therefore ending its inactivity status. 
4. Given that Morocco recently joined OGP in 2018, the priority has been to build cross-cabinet support for open government and build on the momentum after the launch of their Access to Information Law. In March 2019, the SU ran a cabinet-level workshop on open government and also held several bilateral meetings, including with Prime Minister Saadeddine Othmani.

1. Countries under Review: Jamaica, Luxembourg, and Pakistan are currently under Criteria and Standards review and must submit an action plan in 2019 to avoid being designated as inactive;
2. Inactive: Trinidad and Tobago remains the only inactive country and must submit an action plan by 5 December 2019 in order to prevent being withdrawn from OGP (refer to inactivity resolution here);
3. Response Policy Cases (access the full policy here)
   1. Azerbaijan was suspended on December 2018 for a full action plan cycle, and must complete a set of milestones in order to prevent permanent suspension from OGP (see SC resolution here).
   2. In Mexico, domestic activities are taking place to address the issues that led to the initial filing of the Response Policy case in July 2018. In August 2019, the Criteria and Standards Subcommittee (C&S) will assess the progress made and will determine the appropriate next steps in line with the Response Policy protocols.
4. Country Contributions: In 2018, 35 countries (44%) contributed to the SU with a total of $2.8 million - if each member country paid the minimum requested amount, the total revenue for OGP from country contributions would almost double. For 2019, SC members can lead by example and convey the importance of country contributions to OGP in their bilateral engagements with other members, as well as ensure they make their own contributions.
5. Opportunities: There are 49 action plans expected in 2019. These represent an opportunity for SC members to lead by example in developing ambitious commitments to advance the implementation of thematic reforms and translate commitments made at global platforms into concrete actions. This also represents an opportunity for peer exchange activities and supporting countries that are undergoing challenges.

1. Strategic national-local vertical integration: Recognizing that open government reforms can have more impact and be made more sustainable when national open government reforms are localized and when local innovations are scaled, support the further development of effective national government and/or civil society strategies to enable and foster local open government.
2. Enhanced OGP Local program: Building on the successes and lessons learnt from the pilot program, develop a new “OGP Local” program that incentivises local ambition and innovation; supports more local governments and civil society actors to co-create and implement open government commitments that respond to citizens’ interests; and creates cohorts of local participants that can support each other and inspire others.
3. Platform for knowledge, learning, innovation and capacity building: OGP will use a combination of online and offline tools to create opportunities for local level reformers to share knowledge, access expertise from partner organisations, and to receive training at a much larger scale than has been possible so far. In this way, OGP’s local community will be at the forefront of a partnership-wide vision for a more collaborative platform for learning.

1. The IRM Refresh 2.0 will focus on a strategic rethinking of the IRM. Currently, 80% of the IRM’s time and resources are allocated to the production of reports, and only 20% to outreach and dissemination efforts.  This hinders the opportunities for IRM to have more impact in OGP.
2. The scope of the IRM Refresh 2.0 consists of two parallel processes:
   1. Refining the IRM value proposition: This will aim to improve alignment of IRM’s purpose to OGP’s strategic aims, it will set principles for the redesigned IRM reporting framework, and it will clarify IRM governance structures and relationships with other parts of OGP. This implies revisions to the IRM Charter that will require SC approval. Charter revisions will be developed jointly between the International Experts Panel/IRM and the Criteria and Standards (C&S) Subcommittee, in consultation with SC. The C&S subcommittee will  table the recommended charter revisions to the SC for approval in the December SC meeting.
   2. Rethinking the IRM reporting framework: This pertains to the content specific and technical aspects of how IRM will implement its principles and value proposition through IRM products and reporting. This implies revisions to the IRM Procedures Manual and will require engagement, consultation and feedback from the SC and OGP community.

1. Shared struggle: What are the shared struggles in the OGP community today? Have OGP’s past successes and current challenges deterred it from seeing these shared struggles?
2. Strategic involvement of heads of state and ministers: Is the mode of involvement/ engagement on the part of heads of state and ministers transactional (i.e. involved only when required) or substantive?
3. Modeling how government can be different: OGP is a platform where civil society and government are on equal footing with each other. Is this how the community perceives OGP and has OGP driven this powerful mechanism and imagery enough?  
4. Support to the lonely civil and public servants: Civil/public servants are the ones who push OGP forward in between major political moments. This is often a difficult and lonesome task. Has OGP figured out how to fuel these quiet heroes at the national and local levels? Does OGP have the practical resources to support these individuals on a day-to-day basis? 
5. Listening to the troublemakers: Often times, it is the troublemakers that best understand the deeply rooted issues and challenges that others are unaware of. OGP may not be well-established enough to the point that it can afford to listen to the troublemakers. However, listening to them may perhaps be the key to getting to the roots of problems that the OGP community is currently facing.

1. Canada is implementing Gender Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) in public engagements and consultations, building capacity for more open and inclusive dialogue, increasing access to gender and inclusion data and developing a GBA+ and inclusive open government toolkit.
2. Germany has committed to advancing social awareness and acceptance of LGBTQ+ community through a digital information portal (Regenbogenportal) that shares information on gender diversity and LGBTQ+ lifestyles with the general public, experts, the LGBTQ+ community and their relatives.
3. South Korea will enact mandatory quotas for high-level women in government, public organizations and schools and mainstream gender into diverse policy actions and establish gender equality units in 8 government offices.
4. Argentina passed the Law on Gender Parity in Political Representation in 2017, as part of the National Plan for Equal Opportunities and Rights.

1. France has committed to developing new formats for exchanging ideas with civil society, including the “Open D Etat” Forum, which offers an informal discussion space for citizens and state officials to discuss a specific theme and share knowledge, practices and experiences.
2. South Korea committed to engaging citizens in budgeting, organizational, personnel and performance management through online and offline platforms that allow citizens to propose and explore policy ideas with diverse stakeholders. 
3. Georgia has established a budget monitoring online platform that equips citizens with comprehensive budgetary information using easily comprehensible data visualizations and allows for citizens to provide direct feedback to the State Audit Office.

1. Canada is advancing impact for digital democracy by improving transparency and awareness of the government’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) through a directive on decision support systems that sets rules on how government departments can ethically use AI and through a tool to help institutions better understand and mitigate the risks associated with AI.
2. France has committed to improving transparency of public algorithms and source codes, which play an important role in the implementation of policies and provide citizens with key information on administrative decisions.
3. Mexico is currently working on using digital to help strengthen civil rights and restoring the trust in public institutions by ending illegal espionage and surveillance at the state level.
4. Italy has committed to establishing a dedicated portal which will become the point of access to consultations organized by public administrations. Special attention will be given to administrations by offering an open-source software to do consultations, setting up a dedicated help desk and providing specific training to public employees.

• Gender and inclusion needs to go beyond the political representation by women and needs to be mainstreamed across all sectors in policymaking. For example, by strengthening the ties between gender and inclusion and anti-corruption and combating sexual exploitation and human trafficking issues across different countries.
• Globally, democracy is not yet receding; however, a critical juncture has been reached. This juncture is an opportunity for OGP to demonstrate that there is a different way for government and civil society to work together to have a positive societal impact. To accomplish this, OGP needs to strengthen the substance and work around delivering concrete structures and mechanisms to actually bring governments and civil society together.
• In order for OGP to act as a countervailing force against the rise in authoritarianism it needs to: 1) deliver on the requests for support that it has not yet delivered on; and 2) push concertedly against the global decline in civic space - if this does not happen, OGP’s other thematic priorities will not come to fruition.
• OGP can find allies within government that can push forward the open government agenda. As the tactical outside actor, OGP should continue to maintain political pressure and rally for the opening of civic space to push back against oppressive administrations.

1. The vertical integration of the local program needs to be reinforced with equivalent efforts at horizontal integration (i.e. peer exchanges). Moving forward, OGP Local should be used to foster stronger engagement with grassroot actors, expand civic space and enhance accountability mechanisms;
2. Mutual exchanges between the current and future local cohorts is a scalable and sustainable way to expand OGP Local; and
3. During the design phase of the OGP Local Strategy, it is important that other locals have flexibility in the ways they can join and participate in the OGP process.

1. Create an Open State: A holistic approach to capture the nodes of openness in government beyond the executive (i.e. Parliaments, the judiciary, local governments) and embed OGP values across governance models;
2. Rebuild Trust and Integrity in Digital Democracy: Building on the work being done to combat corruption and the declining trust in public institutions, bring digital and democracy together by building frameworks that protect people while enhancing government transparency and accountability mechanisms in the digital age;

• Agenda and Pre-Meeting Packet (May 2019) 

• Steering Committee Meeting Presentation (May 2019) 

• Steering Committee Call to Action for Collective Leadership  

• OGP Local Strategy and Steering Committee Resolution