OGP Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting

Basic public services are one of the primary touchpoints between citizens and governments. Delivering basic public services that are responsive to citizen needs while managing fiscal resources prudently is a critical function of government. Yet governments are no longer sole stakeholders in this. With the growing demand for improvements in the delivery of public services, some crucial trends that have emerged include: a) citizens and civil society playing key roles in co-designing, monitoring, and co-delivering public services b) the private sector stepping into this space, through public-private sector partnerships and providing services to citizens directly and c) increasing use of technology in delivering and improving public services.

In light of these trends, open government principles of transparency, accountability and participation can be crucial in facilitating government responsiveness to citizens’ needs and better accountability for use of public resources, leading to improvements that are observable and experienced by citizens in their daily lives. Several OGP countries in the Asia-Pacific region have made commitments on opening up data on public services, establishing feedback mechanisms and involving citizens in the design, delivery and monitoring of services. Yet, the Independent Reporting Mechanism findings show limited potential for transformative impact, particularly as the reforms are scaled beyond pilot phases.

There’s a need to develop a better collective understanding of the ways in which the knowledge, skills, networks and capacities of governments, civil society, and other stakeholders can be better leveraged for ensuring that public services remain accountable, citizen-centred and responsive. A stock on the extent to which ongoing or planned open government initiatives tackle the problems they intend to address, gaps that remain and steps for improving outcomes and impact is essential. This workshop to be held at the 2018 OGP Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting will bring together various stakeholders in the service delivery chain - government, civil society, donors, innovators - to explore these issues and develop a community of practice for enhancing the uptake and delivery of ambitious public service delivery commitments through OGP action plans.