Current status of Switzerland joining the Open Government Partnership initiative

This post was originally published by Matthias Stürmer on digitale-nachhaltigkeit.ch:

statement-ogp More than a year ago, the co-presidents of the Parliamentary Group on Digital Sustainability, National Councillor Edith Graf-Litscher and National Councillor Christian Wasserfallen, sent a letter to Federal Councillor and Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter concerning Switzerland joining the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative. A good deal has happened since then, though mostly behind the scenes of the administration.

Several meetings between the Parliamentary Group on Digital Sustainability and the Opendata.ch association with the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) have shown that a broad consultation process is under way on the part of the authorities regarding the opportunities and challenges of Switzerland joining the OGP initiative.

To set out, on behalf of the Opendata.ch association, the benefits and opportunities for improvement of joining the OGP initiative, the Opendata.ch board today sent this letter [PDF] to the FDFA for the attention of the offices involved.

You can also find the full document here (after the click):

Statement by the Opendata.ch association on Switzerland joining the Open Government Partnership initiative

The Opendata.ch association welcomes official Switzerland joining the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative as quickly as possible. In this document we describe the benefits and opportunities for improvement that, in our view, such a step can deliver.

Benefits

The following benefits arise if Switzerland becomes a member of the OGP initiative:

  • Transfer of experience and know-how: Joining the OGP initiative connects Switzerland with the international community of governments from all over the world that are actively implementing Open Government projects. Through active participation in the OGP’s bodies and through expert feedback on our national Open Government action plan, Switzerland gains access to experience and know-how in the practical planning and implementation of Open Government projects.
  • Alignment and synergies: Drawing up its own Open Government country plan, which OGP membership requires, gives Switzerland occasion to take stock of the ongoing Open Government projects at all federal levels and – where sensible – to harmonise them. This national inventory and harmonisation also allows alignment with ongoing projects in other countries. Because the software solutions used are often published under an open source licence, applications can be reused and synergies exploited.
  • Visibility: If Switzerland becomes a member of the OGP initiative, it can make its ongoing Open Government projects visible at international level and draw attention to planned undertakings. Switzerland can thus play an even more active role in the worldwide effort for more transparency and civic participation. Proven Swiss political concepts such as direct democracy or the principle of collegiality can thereby be brought closer to other countries.
  • Impact monitoring in development cooperation: The OGP initiative commits its members to more transparency and better anti-corruption efforts. To this end it has laid down binding principles and requires each member to produce a national action plan on how these Open Government principles are to be implemented. This also concerns development cooperation in particular, and enables Switzerland as a donor country to monitor more effectively the use of its development contributions by recipient countries that are members of the OGP.

Opportunities for improvement

Although Switzerland is already exemplary in many areas of the OGP initiative (transparency, civic participation, anti-corruption and accountability) and easily fulfils the membership criteria, joining will enable further progress in the following areas:

  • Transparency: Through the pilot project OGD@Bund1, several federal offices are currently working to publish their open data uniformly in machine-readable formats on a shared central platform. But this is only the beginning. Numerous legal and financial barriers still exist that needlessly hinder the publication of government data. Through the exchange of experience with other countries, Switzerland can make further progress in the area of data access and data provision.
  • Participation: The Swiss democratic system allows all those entitled to vote to take an active part in political life. By means of intelligent Open Government applications (e.g. www.fixmystreet.co.uk, www.zueriwieneu.ch), civic participation beyond taking part in elections and votes can be specifically encouraged. The exchange and contacts that Switzerland gains through participating in the OGP initiative will lead to new, successful Open Government projects that ultimately increase the population’s participation in societal projects.
  • Anti-corruption: Countries such as the United Kingdom and the USA already publish detailed information about politicians, senior civil servants, public procurement etc. very transparently. Through active exchange in the bodies of the OGP initiative, Switzerland can learn from the successes and failures of such anti-corruption measures in other countries and draw the appropriate lessons for the situation in Switzerland.
  • Accountability: The traceability of government action is fundamental to building the population’s trust in the government. Certain countries may be more advanced than Switzerland here. By joining the OGP initiative, Switzerland can take part in an international learning process and exert early influence on the emerging standardisation in this area.

References

The following documents were consulted in preparing this statement: