Conclusions of the conference “Open Government Partnership: From vision to action”

Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TIBiH), in cooperation with the coalition of NGOs responsible for the Open Government Partnership Initiative (Open Government Partnership – OGP), organized a conference entitled “Open Government Partnership: From vision to action” intended for the institutions and government bodies of the Federation of BiH.

The conference participants introduced the principles and standards of the Open Government Partnership Initiative, member of which BiH became in September 2014, through the various presentations and discussions.
This was also the occasion to present the findings of the assessment of the Federation BiH institutions readiness to open data and practice of proactive disclosure of information, as well as the achievements and results of the OGP Initiative obtained so far, including the experiences of the countries in the region. TIBiH presented a plan for the further cooperation between the civil society organizations and federal institutions through the training programs and workshops related to proactive disclosure of information and data, and the ways to improve the communication with citizens in order to improve the government openness and strengthen the transparency and liability of their work, which is one of the proclaimed principles of the Reform Agenda for BiH 2015-2018.
In addition to participants of the state government level, and representatives of NGOs and independent researchers for BiH, participants from the region also gave a special review of the situation in BiH and Federation. It was emphasized that the OGP Initiative needed political support due to its great advantages and opportunities. “OGP Initiative offers a possibility of compilation with the reform processes and synchronization with EU integrations”, it was concluded by the conference attendees.

It is precisely the ruling structure that usually recognizes the benefits of the OGP Initiative in the countries of the region. The reason for this is the fact that the OGP Initiative, which is much less burdened with forms and is not technocratic compared to EU integrations, may be a good tool for meeting various agendas as long as they meet the requirements of transparency, inclusion of citizens, liability and innovation/technology. At the same time, the independent researchers and evaluators of BiH within the OGP Initiative estimated that at the federal level there has been no progress in the past period in regard to disclosure of data and openness, and that the political support is of great importance for this process.