3 Improving Open Governance & the Open Government Partnership (OGP) The Myanmar Government has committed to joining the Open Government Partnership (OGP) by 2016. The OGP is an international platform of 68 governments aimed at making their governments more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. However Myanmar is not yet eligible to participate in the OGP. Prospective members are evaluated on objective data using a point system and must earn a minimum score of 75 across four categories: fiscal transparency, asset disclosure by public officials, access to information, and citizen engagement. In addition, prospective members must make a specific commitment to the OGP principles and develop an effective consultation process with civil society to develop a national action plan. 162 OGP is about changing the culture of government to one where it is open by default and where citizen participation is a routine part of policy development. If citizens can engage in public debate, provide input, and make contributions this will lead to more responsive, innovative and effective governance. OGP is particularly about promoting accountability, requiring government actors to justify their actions, act upon criticisms or requirements made of them, and accept responsibility for failure to perform with respect to laws or commitments. If the Government of Myanmar carries through with its commitments to the OGP, the initiative has the power to transform the relationship between the Government and its citizens through the use of ICT. Although the Government Steering Committee and Working Committee have been announced, both committees lack a website or readily available public information on their plans and activities, and also lack diverse stakeholder representation, including civil society participants. Myanmar CSOs have raised concerns that there may be more pressing priorities than OGP including constitutional reform, justice and a genuine peace process, rule of law, and urgent legal and judicial reform. 163 Table 29: The Emergence of Civic Tech 164 Focus Area Definition Visualisation and Enable users to make sense of and gain actionable insight from Mapping civic data sources, specifically through the visualisation and mapping of that information Data Utility Empower users to analyse Government data and leverage data to improve service delivery Data Access and Promote Government data availability transparency and Transparency accountability Voting Support voter participation and fair election processes Public Decision Encourage resident participation in large-scale deliberative Making democracy and community planning efforts Resident Feedback Provide residents with opportunities to interact with Government 162 See OGP, “How to Join” (last accessed August 2015). Burma Partnership, “Statement from Open Government Partnership Awareness Workshop for Civil Society” (January 2015). 164 See: Knight Foundation, “What does the civictech landscape look like?” (last accessed August 2015). 163 102 PAGE CHAPTER 3: SECTOR-LEVEL IMPACTS