Clinton kicks off open-government partnership

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has formed an international partnership to use innovative technologies for transparency and public engagement.

Clinton and Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota announced the Open Government Partnership at a July 12 meeting of about 90 officials of governments and nongovernment organizations from around the world. Clinton and Patriota will co-chair the program in its first year.

The partnership leaders also debuted a new website, Facebook page and Twitter account. Many transparency advocates view social media, wikis, transparency websites and crowdsourcing applications as tools for increasing openness and availability of data and for getting public feedback.

Open gov: So far, so good, but still further to go

Congress should scrutinize open government effectiveness

Among the goals of the partnership are to share best practices and demonstrate available technologies, methods and tools, the State Department said in a news release.

The partnership will formally launch in September, after the steering committee develops an open-government declaration and countries announce action plans.

Maria Otero, undersecretary for democracy and global affairs, said governments around the world are pursuing greater transparency in several ways — by publishing more data, engaging with the public to monitor and oversee delivery of services and obtaining input from the public on how to improve services. Transparency “can decrease and discourage corruption,” Otero said in a video posted at State's website.

For example, in India, the government trained “citizen monitors” to oversee the distribution of funding for local relief, resulting in millions of dollars saved from corruption, Warren Krafchik, director of the International Budget Partnership, said in the video.

In addition, in Mexico, a private organization posted government data about trade-related subsidies for farmers online for the first time, which revealed that the wealthiest farmers were receiving a large share of the subsidies. The publicity resulted in reforms in policy, Krafchik said.

“Citizens can contribute to good governance,” he said.

However, despite general enthusiasm for the goals of the partnership among transparency advocates, there also was some skepticism about whether the new partnership would have the intended effect. “The Open Government Partnership: Game Changer or Symbolic Slogan?” asked David Sasaki, a consultant for the Open Society Institute, in a July 11 blog entry.