U.S. and Brazil Launch Open Government Initiative, Countries List Plans
The White House has posted information on the Open Government Partnership (OGP) launched by the U.S. and Brazil on September 20, 2011 during the United Nations General Assembly. The eight founding members of the OGP signed a declaration and presented their action plans of commitments, and 38 governments said they would join the initiative and announce their action plans in March 2012.
The following are examples from the eight founding members' actions plans:
- U.S. to expand whistleblower protections, fight corruption. The U.S. is working to reform and expand protections for whistleblowers who expose government waste, fraud and abuse and is continuing its leadership of the global effort against corruption by building on legislation that now requires oil, gas, and mining companies to disclose the payments that foreign governments demand of them.
- Indonesia to work on transparency of customs office. Indonesia plans to pursue an ambitious effort to bring greater transparency to range of critical areas that have been sources of corruption in the public sector, with commitments to publish basic information and performance data for the police and public prosecution service, the tax court, the immigration office, the customs office, and the land administration office.
- Mexico to publish more info on security, telecomm. Mexico agreed to increase the publication of "socially useful" information in four key areas -- budget allocation, security, education, and telecommunications.
- Brazil to launch access to info portal. Brazil will launch the Brazil Open Data Portal, in order to converge to the appropriate environment for future enactment of the Access to Information Law.
OGP website is available here.