Open Government Partnership takes off
The Public Consultations Programme for National Action Plan under the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Ghana initiative takes off on Wednesday October 17.
The programme will be organised in three zones and climaxed with a national validation workshop at the Accra International Conference Centre, on November 7th to look at all reports from the three zones for further action.
The consultation for the northern zones comprising the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions is slated for October 17 at the Modern City Hotel, Tamale.
Dr Tony Aidoo, Head of Policy Evaluation and Oversight Unit at the Office of the President, who announced this in Accra on Monday said, the public consultations for the middle zone comprising the Eastern, Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo regions would be held at the Senator Hotel in Kumasi on October 24.
“Public consultations for the southern zone comprising the Volta, Greater Accra, Central and Western regions will take place at the Sanaa Lodge in Cape Coast on October 31st,” he said.
He said participants had been drawn from both government institutions and civil society organizations to ensure fair representation on each side.
Launching the programme, Dr Aidoo said OGP is a new voluntary, international multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to their citizenry to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.
He said Ghana was already doing much in this area and under the OGP those efforts needed to be demonstrated, monitored and evaluated over a period of time.
Dr Aidoo said in September 2011, Ghana signed onto the OGP initiative to improve public services, increase public integrity, manage public resource effectively, create safer communities and increase corporate accountability.
He said in connection with that Ghana was expected to develop a national Action Plan for submission to the Global Secretariat of the OGP by December 2012 and demonstrate progress in implementation by April 2013.
He said a 20-member National Steering Committee for OGP Ghana was inaugurated in August this year, to plan, develop and implement Ghana’s Action Plan in accordance with the process of multi-stakeholder consultations agreed by OGP member countries.
The steering committee was also expected to influence institutional arrangements to achieve the envisaged open government result.
The Public Sector Reform Secretariat serves as the secretariat for OGP-Ghana, with the support of the World Bank and in collaboration with the Institute of Democratic Governance, a civil society group to provide technical expertise and logistic support to the activities of the Steering Committee.
Source: GNA