World Leaders Endorse Paris Declaration at OGP Summit

Mayors from OGP’s pilot subnational program around the world in group photo after the have attended the session.

Photo-Hassan Silayo-Paris France

Our Correspondents-MAELEZO PARIS 

mwambawahabari

Eighty governments and hundreds of civil society organizations from around the world have signed up to collective actions in the Paris Declaration, including several on anti-corruption.

This comes at the close of the 3-day Open Government Partnership Global Summit in Paris which also saw the launch of new open government reforms by the 15 members of OGP’s Subnational Pilot Program including Kigoma Manicipality from Tanzania.

The Paris Declaration includes nineteen collective actions, where governments and civil society groups agree to work together towards output-oriented tangible results. Collective Actions include: Transparency and open contracts in natural resource sector , Transparency on lobbying, Ending abuse of anonymous companies, implementation of access to information laws, Harnessing the Data Revolution for Sustainable Development and Climate Risk Resilience, implementation of guiding principles for open data policies; and increasing responsiveness of public services.

Sanjay Pradhan, The Open Government Partnership CEO, set the stage for the three day event by reminding participants of the current geopolitical context. “The Open Government movement has never been more under threat - and yet our work have never been very important for a more hopeful world, hence we need civil society activists, journalists, parliamentarians, private sector and reformers in government to leverage the OGP platform to join forces, forge coalitions and find collective courage to fight vested interests.”

Speaking after the ending of the Summit Kigoma Ujiji OGP Coordinator Engineer Sultan Ndoliwa Said they have learned a lot of new things form the summit which will help to foster citizen development by tackling challenges faces citizen on time and with the required quality.

Hussein Ruhava The Mayor of Kigoma Ujiji Mnicipality advices other municipality in Tanzania to have the culture of listerning on what citizens wants as it could help to get rid of complains of inadequate public services in various Sectors.

Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, welcomed leaders from OGP’s pilot subnational program to Paris saying, “The subnational gathering in Paris is a historic achievement that demonstrates how indispensable city participation is in overcoming the challenges of our century.” Government and civil society leaders from Austin, United States; Bojonegoro, Indonesia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Elgeyo Marakwet, Kenya; Jalisco, Mexico; Kigoma, Tanzania; La Libertad, Peru; Madrid, Spain; Ontario, Canada; Paris, France; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Scotland, United Kingdom; Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana; Seoul, South Korea and Tbilisi, Georgia attended the event.

“Making Transparency Count” was the theme of this year’s Open Government Awards, which was open to civil society organizations that have used OGP results to further their work.