Fwd: Digest for us-open-government@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic
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Alexander Howard
Oct 6, 2023, 3:47:37 PM10/6/23
to Sanjay Pradhan, Joe Powell, José Antonio García Morales, Alonso Cerdan, us-open-g...@googlegroups.com, ogp--us-civil-soci...@googlegroups.com, OGP Civil Society group, openg...@googlegroups.com, ope...@ostp.eop.gov
Dear Daniel, Sanjay, Joe, José, Alonso, US officials, and members of U.S. civil society,
I write today to express my continued dismay at the lack of responsiveness by both the Steering Committee and U.S. officials. to the constructive and considered criticism of the poor performance of the United States government in the Open Government Partnership.
Despite the United States acting contrary to process in 2017, 2018,
2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, the Steering Committee declined to place our
government under procedural review, a lack of sanction that has enabled
further backsliding. The
fact that the 5th NAP was published online over the holidays with no
quotes or involvement from civil society, much less an in-person event
with press present, reflected the poverty of low expectations that have
marked this process throughout.
It remains
inscrutable to me that Sanjay would justify not doing so with the fact
that the USA had already been found to have acted contrary to process in
the design process.
The
actions of the Trump administration made a mockery of our continued
participation, though no US official in Estonia apologized nor
acknowledged the corrosive impact of corruption and lies upon the
relationship between the US government, press, NGOs, and the American
people, nor was able to attest to how that was rebuilt over the course
of 2021 and 2022.
An email sent to the listserv is unfortunately symbolic of the issues that have persisted since January 2021, many of which I expect to be documented in a forthcoming Independent Review Mechanism report that will consider the failures of the co-creation process last winter to produce a strong new plan with civil society, instead of a report that collected a grab-bag of 3 dozen mostly pre-existing initiatives with little to no accountability for delivery -- or the lack thereof.
Instead of a formal letter from Administrator Carnahan to OGP that's posted on OGP's website -- as in 2020 -- that acknowledged the legitimacy of the criticism from U.S. civil society, addressed the substance of our concerns and those detailed in the results report, and announced new commitments that pulled from our coalition's longstanding priorities for open government, there are only vague commitments to do better in the next action plan cycle.
The examples of actions that GSA cited also do not reflect the ways that the agency is not leading by example.
I encourage anyone on this list to try to find open.usa.gov if they visit GSA.gov or its social media accounts, much less those of the White House. Then, compare to the information available about US performance, progress, and personnel at OGP:
There is no restored open government page, process, or policy at the GSA. GSA.gov/open now forwards to an outdated page about open data that has no information about OGP, past or present commitments, the government-wide initiative this Secretariat is tasked with coordinating, or the OPEN Government Data Act that superceded the cited order. There is no connection to the Freedom of Information Act on this open data page, either. After FOIAOnline.gov was sunset this past weekend, the GSA has not published all of the disclosures that had been hosted there on its FOIA Reading Room. Intead, the page still suggests that Americans should visit FOIAOnline (!) https://www.gsa.gov/reference/freedom-of-information-act-foia/electronic-reading-room and that we should search the new PAL system for the records that were removed from public access. Good luck with that: https://pal.gsa.gov/app/Home.aspx
Burying all
of this information and declining to use the (considerable) ability of
the White House to engage the American people about the cited
"engagement sessions" has resulted in consigning all of this work to the
opacity of obscurity. Instead of linking to and acknowledging the serious issues detailed in the IRM's results report, much less acknowledging civil society criticism, the position of the U.S. government appears to be that as long as civil servants continue post statements regarding its (pre-baked commitments) on a website and hosts webinars on unilaterally defined topics and terms, it is in compliance with OGP's guidelines.
That's false: the USA remains out of compliance in word and deed. There is still no public record of the co-creation process from 2022. The "schedule of engagement sessions" cited does not include archived video, transcripts, or public comments from the online workshops. Compare to the records of the public meetings from November 2021, April and May 2022 -- though you have to know the specific URLs to find those meetings, as they are not listed in the repository GSA is holding up to OGP as evidence of renewed commitment.
As I wrote on the U.S. Open Government email listserv, the “reasoned response” the administration was neither prefaced nor followed by an index of the ideas, research, or feedback the White House received since May 2022, when the USGSA posted online forms on open.usa.gov. The unsigned document implicitly claimed that the response and the previous summary of civil society feedback are accurate and representative summaries of the priorities and proposals we have submitted, while providing no evidence to support the assertion.
As I wrote then, this was contrary to the basic requirements of the Open Government Partnership’s co-creation standards. The US government has still not “published and disseminated all written contributions (e.g., consultation input as well as responses) to the action plan development" on open.usa.gov or "other appropriate channels,” despite repeated requests. The US government never “provided feedback to stakeholders on how their contributions were considered during the creation of the action plan,” perhaps because our contributions are not public, as in past cycles, nor specifically acknowledged.
Moreover, as the four meetings the U.S. government held in October and November were conducted under Chatham House rules and were not recorded, there is no written record nor archived video to compare against the proposed themes and vague commitments.
Without public disclosure of all proposed ideas and commitments, it remains impossible to judge whether the summaries the US government are accurate or not. What I can say with certainty is that the 5th NAP did not represent the open government priorities of U.S. civil society that were collaboratively drafted over 2020, submitted to the Biden-Harris transition, and then provided again in this process in 2021 and 2022:. https://blueprintforaccountability.us/progress-report/#open-government
Unlike peer nations like Canada, there has been no ongoing followup on the plan since its publication. (Canada published consultation data for the co-creation of its 2022-2024 plan, as part of a report on what it heard from Canadians, and continues to engage its public on social media and the Web.
The cited press release regarding the administrator's travel to Estonia is, however, the only such release that has gone out since OSTP's post in December 2022. (I challenge anyone to find a member of the White House press corps who has received a release about this work since then, or any statement from the Office of the Press Secretary.)
From my perspective as a longtime observer of open government who has participated in OGP since its founding, however, that bare minimum is unacceptable for a country on the Steering Committee -- much less the United States of America.
A government-wide initiative should feature government-wide participation, starting with the President of the United States. That's why our letter in August was addressed to President Biden.
I want to be clear: I very much appreciate the efforts of the Secretariat to move forward within its remit, but public support from the White House that makes it clear that this work is a presidential priority remains necessary for OGP to be remotely successful in the USA.
I offered concrete ways in July 2023 that the USA could lead by example that remain relevant: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/stories/six-ways-the-united-states-can-lead-by-example-on-open-government/
I encourage everyone to read the IRM's assessment of how the last administration approached participation and co-creation in the results report and then to reflect upon how that history just repeated in 2022, with predictably poor results and no expectations for impact.
The most concrete way for the US government to do this is to come back to roundtables in person this fall to co-create 3-5 new commitments that reflect the priorities of civil society, to then announce them at the anti-corruption summit in December, and then to document progress on them by the next Summit for Democracy. The OGP process allows for additional commitments in cycle -- and the Obama-Biden administration did exactly that in 2016.
I also hope that OGP as an institution will be more honest brokers in this process, from the Steering Committee to its leadership to its support unit. That means being willing to hold the USA publicly accountable for our failures by publicising these IRM reports, continuing to seek out and elevate critical voices, and being willing to make officials uncomfortable. Please don't seek to move civil society criticism off of any listserv or platform our officials at Summits without giving civil society leaders the opportunity to respond on stage. (While I loved seeing Maria Ressa on stage with Samantha Power, I couldn't help notice that the Philippine government was able to make unchallenged claims at a roundtable and that no one ever criticized the domestic performance of US government from stage.)
I urge all U.S. officials to proactively move forward on co-creating new commitments before the next IRM report comes out, given the very real risk of it further solidifying the global impression that the U.S. government is not doing domestically what it encourages other nations to do globally, undermining the utility of OGP to strengthening democracy against the growing threat of authoritarianism everywhere.
Thank you to the public servants for your renewed commitment to improving this process and being willing to take lumps along the long path to restoring trust in our government of the people, as Administrator Carnahan committed to doing at the Summit. I'm rooting for you.
Best,
Alex Howard
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From: <us-open-g...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 5, 2023 at 11:27 PM
Subject: Digest for us-open-g...@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic
To: Digest recipients <us-open-g...@googlegroups.com>
From: <us-open-g...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 5, 2023 at 11:27 PM
Subject: Digest for us-open-g...@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic
To: Digest recipients <us-open-g...@googlegroups.com>
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Daniel York - M1ET <danie...@gsa.gov>: Oct 05 03:49PM -0400
Hello Mr. Pradhan, Thank you for your letter dated August 11, 2023, which shared the findings of the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) regarding the United States’ 2019-2022 4th National Action Plan (NAP) under the Open Government Partnership (OGP). The U.S. Government deeply values our participation in the OGP and is committed to the principles of transparency, accountability, and citizen engagement. We are proud to reaffirm our commitment to democracy and the Partnership’s mission as we begin our term on the OGP Steering Committee. We have conducted a thorough review of our efforts, which are summarized below, and we acknowledge the concerns raised, specifically in regard to maintaining an OGP repository and providing public information on action plan implementation. Please be assured that the United States government takes these findings very seriously and is committed to adhering to OGP’s requirements. We had already initiated and will continue executing remedial actions, including: - Establishing an OGP Repository and beta NAP commitment tracker <https://open.usa.gov/national-action-plan/5/commitments>. - Hosting a series of engagement sessions <https://open.usa.gov/national-action-plan/5/schedule-of-2023-engagement-sessions/> with civil society. - Establishing a dedicated Secretariat in the General Services Administration to coordinate governmentwide open government efforts (see GSA Press Release <https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/us-general-services-administrator-robin-carnahan-leads-delegation-to-open-government-partnership-global-summit-in-estonia-09052023> ). - Conducting a thorough review of OGP’s procedural review policy to ensure our next (6th) NAP will be in alignment with all relevant standards and requirements. We remain committed to promoting greater transparency, accountability, and citizen engagement in policy making, both domestically and at the international level. We look forward to building on the lessons shared by our peers at the Global OGP Summit in Estonia last month and finding more meaningful ways to engage with U.S. civil society in the co-creation process for our next (6th) action plan. We are resolved to meet OGP’s requirements, now and in the future, and continue our dedication to the principles of open government. Sincerely, U.S. General Services Administration Daniel W. York Director, Open Government Secretariat Office of Government-wide Policy |
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Alexander B. Howard
Director, Digital Democracy Project | governing.digital
410.849.9808 | @digiphile | He / him
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