Draft Report on NAP 3.0's first year (2015-16); OGP requests comments on

[Stephen Buckley]

Hello All,

I think I just stumbled across this, because I can't find an email or tweet from OGP, or a "what's-new" announcement on their website.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) has invited the public (in 2017, date unknown) to comment on its "Mid-Term Progress Report" on the U.S. National Action Plan for Open Government 2015-2017 ("NAP 3.0").  The time-period covered by the assessment is from October 2015 to July 2016 (but they do talk about what happened later in the year).
 
The due-date for comments is Wednesday, October 18th, until "close of business".  (Why not midnight?)  I've included the text from the web-page and the link, below.

OGP says you can comment by direct email, or in a public comment-box (Disqus) at the bottom of their webpage, but if you want be open with your thoughts on OGP's assessment about NAP 3.0 progress, then you can reply to this message to create a thread here.  I plan to do so shortly, especially concerning the OGP's critique of the NAP 3.0 Commitment (#24) to "Improve Public Participation" (see .pdf pages 99-102).

best,

Stephen Buckley
#OpenGov rep, U.S. Chapter
International Association for Public Participation (IAP2)
http://www.IAP2usa.org

-----------

"Public comment version" (undated)
https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/united-states-mid-term-progress-report-2015-2017-public-comment

In 2017, the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) published the progress report for the US Third National Action Plan. The report covers the development and first year of implementation of the action plan through June 2016. It also covers recent developments in the national context.

The findings of the report are summarized below:

"While the third US national action plan contains several high-impact commitments in new areas such as climate data, open health research, and police data, there was a limited amount of progress on most commitments as of June 2016. Going forward, it is important that the US government expand collaboration with the public during the OGP process and address issues of ethics and public accountability that undermine progress on the open government agenda."

The version of the report for public comment is available in English below. The public is invited to comment on the report here. The two-week public comment period will remain open from 4 October 2017 until close of business on 18 October 2017.

Commenters are welcome to comment below or email comments to: i...@opengovpartnership.org . Please specify in your email if you wish for your comments to remain anonymous.

Documents

  United States Mid-Term Progress Report 2015-2017 - For Public Comment (.pdf file)

[Stephen Buckley]

Hello All,

As promised (below), I am sharing my response to the Open Government Partnership's (OGP's) request for comments on its "Mid-Term Progress Report" on actions undertaken (or not) under the U.S. National Action Plan 3.0 for Open Government during the period from October 2015 to July 2016.

The text quoted below is what I posted last week in a public comment-box (Disqus) at the bottom of their webpage ( http://disq.us/p/1mvpkoi ).  And, as you can see, I am publicly cc:ing this message to the OGP's "Independent Reporting Mechanism" (IRM) office to ensure that they are received, since OGP/IRM apparently failed to notice similar comments made, using their "Disqus" comment-box, this past January (2017). 

Stephen Buckley • 8 days ago

I am the #OpenGov rep for the U.S. Chapter of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2-USA) at http://iap2usa.org . I just shared this RFC with the U.S. Open Government google-group. And if you want to share your thoughts beyond this page, you can also publicly post to OpenGov...@googlegroups.com (without having to subscribe).

I am encouraged by this report because it recognizes that groups like IAP2, who want to share their decades of expertise in Public Participation, have been largely excluded from doing so (see pages 99-102).

The OGP's report says that the U.S. Government's OpenGov effort (started 2009) should be more open and inclusive in developing its next "National Action Plan" (NAP 4.0), especially with the organizations whose "business" is That Very Thing, i.e., how to engage people in open and public problem-solving in the matters that affect their lives.

That "Action Plan" is being developed right now (for delivery by the end of October).

See https://open.usa.gov . However, they appear to be repeating the same exclusionary practices that the U.S. team has been told by OGP to change, as evidenced in this report covering the previous plan (NAP 3.0) from 2015-2016.

Ironically, this #OpenGov program was supposed to get federal agencies to be better listeners to the people outside of government, because they know things that the government experts do not. But, over the last eight years, the succession of White House people put in charge of this "listening" program have VERY RARELY acted in a way that had shown they understand the need to "walk the talk" and admit that some people, outside of D.C., hold pieces of the puzzle that they do not possess.

Steve Buckley

https://twitter.com/OpenGov...

https://join.me/opengovernment

skype: opengov

I would be happy to openly share specific examples (at least the ones that I know of) of how our group, and others, with both broad and deep expertise in Public Participation, based on decades of work, have been consistently (and currently) excluded from important discussions about improving the existing system of Public Participation (!) by the federal agencies of the U.S. government.

I know that there are people who do not want to have an open discussion about how they have not been as inclusive as they would have others be.  But it needs to happen, if the OGP wants to remain credible.  We look forward to your (and any one else's response).

best,

Stephen Buckley
#OpenGov rep, U.S. Chapter
International Association for Public Participation (IAP2)
http://www.IAP2usa.org

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[Joseph Foti]

Thank you, Stephen. Received and noted. We will take them into account when producing the final version of your report.

On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 4:58 PM, Stephen Buckley <sbuc...@igc.org> wrote:

Hello All,

As promised (below), I am sharing my response to the Open Government Partnership's (OGP's) request for comments on its "Mid-Term Progress Report" on actions undertaken (or not) under the U.S. National Action Plan 3.0 for Open Government during the period from October 2015 to July 2016.

The text quoted below is what I posted last week in a public comment-box (Disqus) at the bottom of their webpage ( http://disq.us/p/1mvpkoi ).  And, as you can see, I am publicly cc:ing this message to the OGP's "Independent Reporting Mechanism" (IRM) office to ensure that they are received, since OGP/IRM apparently failed to notice similar comments made, using their "Disqus" comment-box, this past January (2017). 

Stephen Buckley • 8 days ago

I am the #OpenGov rep for the U.S. Chapter of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2-USA) at http://iap2usa.org . I just shared this RFC with the U.S. Open Government google-group. And if you want to share your thoughts beyond this page, you can also publicly post to OpenGovMetrics@googlegroups.com (without having to subscribe).

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to us-open-government+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to us-open-government@googlegroups.com.

Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/us-open-government.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

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Joseph Foti

Program Director

Independent Reporting Mechanism

Open Government Partnership

+001-202-609-7859

Skype: josephfoti

Twitter: ogp_irm

http://www.opengovpartnership.org/independent-reporting-mechanism 

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Please note that emails exchanged with the OGP Independent Reporting Mechanism may be subject to the OGP disclosure policy, which is available here.  If you have any questions or concerns about the specifics of this policy, please do not hesitate to ask.