Ghana signs onto Open Government Partnership
Ghana has signed onto a new initiative — the Open Government Partnership (OGP) — aimed at promoting transparency, empowering citizens, fighting corruption and harnessing new technologies to strengthen governance.
President John Evans Atta Mills joined 45 other countries worldwide to sign Ghana onto the initiative at the ongoing 66th UN General Assembly in New York.
The OGP is a global effort to make governments better with institutions that empower people and are responsive to their aspirations. Member countries of the partnership include the United States of America, Brazil, Albania, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia and Croatia.
Others are Republic of Korea, Liberia, Mexico, South Africa, Spain and Tanzania.
A networking mechanism connects OGP governments with experts in specific areas who help governments to develop innovative, cutting-edge open government commitments.
The OGP mechanism is a facilitator and agent of introduction to both peer governments and third party providers of expertise (non-governmental and private).
It is not an implementing entity or a project manager for governments but its value-addition is in providing quick and useful introductions to potential providers of assistance to governments and ensuring that the resultant dialogue is fruitful and efficient, leveraging its role as a broker towards supporting effective OGP commitment development.
Launching the partnership, the US President, Barack Obama, urged the member countries to promote the value of transparency and commit themselves to the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention against corruption and other applicable international instruments related to human rights and good governance.
Those values, he said, would help in their efforts to promote openness in government, and pursue an approach consistent with their national priorities and circumstance and the aspirations of their citizens.
President Obama urged the member countries of the partnership to lead by example and contribute to advancing open government in other countries by their adherence to best practices.
President Obama pledged the commitment of the US to make the countries which had signed onto the partnership more committed to their resolve to ensure open government and transparency.
President Obama, who expressed delight about other countries joining the initiative, said the strongest foundation for human progress was an open economy and challenged the members to promote the values of good governance and transparency.
Source: Daily Graphic