Letter: Open Government Partnership again warns US government it has acted "contrary to process," but fails to place under review

[alexande...@gmail.com]

Hello all --

In a letter dated August 13, 2023 (below), the Open Government Partnership formally informed the US government on August that it has acted contrary to process in its co-creation of.4th National Action Plan for Open Government and implementation of the plan.

https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/united-states-contrary-to-process-letter-august-2023/

https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/USA_Contrary-to-Process-Letter_20230811.pdf

While the OGP's Independent Review Mechanism and steering committee's governance processes both move too slowly to sanction governments during or after the co-creation process for failing to meet co-creation standards, this administration also acted contrary to process in 2021, 2022, and today. There has been no public answer to this letter nor the one our coalition sent last week:

https://governing.digital/letters/letter-to-president-biden-on-advancing-ambitious-new-commitments-on-open-government-to-defend-democracy

I will be raising these issues at the OGP Global Summit next week.

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Open Government Partnership
1100 13th Street NW
Suite 800
Washington, DC 20005
United States
Phone: +1 202-609-7859
Email: in...@opengovpartnership.org
11 August 2023
Robin Carnahan
Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA)
Government of the United States of America
Dear Administrator Carnahan,
We welcome the Government of United States’ participation in the Open Government Partnership
(OGP), which now comprises 76 countries and 106 local governments working to implement open
government commitments to promote greater transparency, accountability and citizen
engagement in policy-making.
For its 2019-2022 action plan, the Government of the United States did not meet the OGP
minimum requirements for implementation as assessed by the Independent Reporting Mechanism
(IRM) in their report, specifically failing to maintain an OGP repository and failing to provide the
public with information on implementation of the action plan.
The United States has already acted contrary to process previously, by failing to meet minimum
requirements during co-creation of the 2019-2022 action plan. A copy of the letter notifying the
previous occurrence is enclosed for your records. However, considering that the United States
has already acted contrary to process during said cycle, the government of the United States is
not being placed under Procedural Review at this time.
In line with OGP policy, in order to avoid the possibility of future review by the Criteria and
Standards Subcommittee of the OGP Steering Committee, we recommend that the Government
of the United States makes every effort to meet the minimum requirements set forth in the OGP
Participation and Co-Creation standards during its next action plan.
The OGP Support Unit and Steering Committee stand ready to support you in whatever way would
be useful. The Support Unit will contact you and your team to provide additional information
regarding this assessment.
Yours sincerely,
Sanjay Pradhan
Chief Executive Officer

[alexande...@gmail.com]

There has still been no response from the GSA to OGP's letter, nor from the White House to our coalition's letter.

https://governing.digital/letters/letter-to-president-biden-on-advancing-ambitious-new-commitments-on-open-government-to-defend-democracy/

If the Open Government Secretariat intends to restore domestic and global trust in OGP as a platform for civil society in the USA to have an equal seat, it's critical that we hear from the administration here on both counts, soon. Next week's public meeting will be one of many opportunities.

Best,

Alex