Establish an open forum to review quality and progress in OGP commitments PROMISE COMPROMISED

One of the key features of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) is that a great deal of effort is made to include civil society organisation and the public in general in the all stages of the accountability process. This is a much welcomed change from the old way of doing things where policy hacks all sat in a room and decided what the people wanted. For transparency and open government to have true widespread legitimacy  it must include everyone especially the common citizen who has the most to go gain from a well functioning and open government.

Therefore, the following commitment was made in Tanzania's OGP bid:

#2.3 Establish an open forum  in collaboration with civil society to review quality, integrity, depth and pace of progress against OGP commitments.

We rate this promise COMPROMISED for the following reasons:

• A website has been set up where issues dealing with OGP are being posted (http://www.opengov.go.tz/), a good start and a useful one-stop portal to get OGP news. However, the last posting on this website was made in May 2012, meaning the website is not being updated regularly. The website doesn't have a Contacts page where people can email to request further information.
• The OGP needs a dedicated oversight committee which would track progress made on the implementation of various commitments made. A group has been setup comprising of Stakeholders who met on 15th November 2011 (the only such official meeting, as far as we can tell) to get a briefed on the OGP and draft commitments. Whether these stakeholders still track the progress of OGP commitments remains unknown. We suggest that Stakeholders should meet regularly (atleast 3-4 times a year) so as to discuss publicly the progress of OGP commitments and to thoroughly investigate  delays. In the meantime, you can rely on Uhuru Blog to independently review the government's promises of accountability and transparency with the limited information we can obtain.

* UPDATE: Ben Taylor of Daraja, who attended the 15th Nov. meeting, informed us that this Stakeholder meeting was not open to the public and thus no meeting has been held to consult with the wider civil society to give their contribution. Also, no feedback or subsequent meetings have been organised.