Partnership for "open government" started - without Germany

Partnership for "open government" started - without Germany

The governments of 46 countries met on Tuesday in New York at the initiative of the United States and Brazil officially joined the Open Government Partnership (COP). The organization aims to meet the slogans of openness, transparency, cooperation with civil society and the economy to life. They also want to make the actions of the executive verifiable. "We want to promote the great ideal of democracy," the Brazilian minister of state and household inspector Jorge Hage at the start of the alliance said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in Google's Manhattan office. It is possible to use thanks to the technological progress and more elements of direct democracy.

The states that have decided in the "Arab Spring" for more openness, must show the "open government"-partners and Hage, "that the popular government is successful." At issue is the impetus of a permanent process, mechanisms for monitoring and reviewing its own standards and contain every year should be developed.

In addition to Brazil, including the United States already presented a national action plan for implementing the requirements for a more open style of government. Therefore wants Barack Obama, published shortly after taking office a policy of "open government" set up an online petition platform to improve the protection of whistleblowers and an initiative to publish the revenues from natural resources such as oil or gas production and join the mining industry. The efforts of the White House for more openness but also have already suffered setbacks. Thus, the budget for the Open Data Portal Data.gov was shortened significantly. Moreover, the Obama administration is in control issues as buttoned up as the previous Bush administration.

Among the founding members of the partnership in addition to the two initiators Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa and Britain. Germany is missing from the list of nations seeking to join the alliance. The decision on a possible membership and participation at the first COP peak may fall in March in Brazil only after the declaration of partnership and implementation of national plans, it said in the Federal Ministry of Interior. Experts from civil society to press for a rapid decision to the issue of open government in this country to give a new impetus.

Bitange Ndemo, State Secretary in Kenya's Communications Ministry recalled the establishment of a national open-data portal. This would be adopted by the citizens very well. In future it is planned to provide administrative services available via mobile platforms. The Kenyan government also has a right to freedom of information enshrined in the Constitution. Mo Ibrahim, who has established her own foundation to promote transparency in Africa and publishes an annual anti-corruption index complained that U.S. companies like Google or Microsoft would have been no interest to build broadband networks and services in Africa.

The founder of the World Wide Web Foundation Tim Berners-Lee pointed out that open data are valuable in itself constituted yet to be lifted and a gold mine. Even the self-governance works better because ministries are now often "blind" to the activities of other ministries. The COP could, thanks to the networking of initiatives and thanks to the machine readability of data formats now ensure "that we all get a better view of the whole world." It was important to begin with the publication of information in government hands first. Standards to further develop and link the data could be developed later.