Splnomocnenec vlády SR pre rozvoj občianskej spoločnosti / The Office of the Plenipotentiary for the Development of the Civil Society / About us / OPEN GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP

Open Government Partnership

About the Open Government Partnership Initiative

The Open Government Partnership ("OGP") is one of the most dynamically developing international initiatives. The OGP has been set up with an aim to ensure that the governments perform better and return the confidence of citizens in the institutions of public administration by building the principles of openness, responsibility and accountability. The Slovak Republic has been a part of the OGP since 2011. The office of the Plenipotentiary of the Government of the Slovak Republic for the Development of Civil Society (henceforth "the Office of the Plenipotentiary) is the national authority responsible for the coordination of OGP agenda.

OGP’s vision is that more governments become sustainably more transparent, more accountable, and more responsive to their own citizens, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of public policies and services, as well as the level and scope of public participation. This will require a shift in norms and culture to ensure open and honest dialogue between governments and civil society.(source: Open Government Partnership: Four-Year Strategy 2015-2018)

The OGP operates both at national and international level. At the national level, the Office of Plenipotentiary cooperates with the ministers of the individual ministries, the civil society, the academic community with an aim to fulfill the OGP commitments adopted by the Government of the Slovak Republic. The Office of the Plenipotentiary cooperates with other member countries and the OGP headquarters in order to exchange experience and information in the open government.

The Office of Plenipotentiary currently works and monitors the implementation phase of the Third Action Plan for 2017-2019, which is mainly focused on following topics:

Open Information
Open Education
Open Science
Government open to dialogue
Open Justice
Application practice
Feedback and next steps

Rules of the Open Government Partnership

There are only a few basic rules that the state has to observe as a participating country in the OGP:

A National Action Plan (NAP) has to be designed every two years, and in cooperation with the civil society.
The commitments defined in the NAPs are supposed to be implemented according to an envisaged timetable.
Two assessment report summarizing the implementation of OGP commitments are supposed to be adopted within each of the two-year long cycles.
OGP country is required to cooperate on the development of an independent assessment report, prepared by the OGP Main body in cooperation with an independent reviewer.

See the official OGP brochure for more detailed information.

Slovak milestones within the Open Government Partnership

September 2011 - Slovakia's accession to OGP
February 22, 2012 – Adoption of the OGP Action Plan 2012 - 2013 (PDF, 188 kB) by theResolution of the Government of the Slovak Republic no. 50/2012. (PDF, 24 kB)
October 2013 - OGP Evaluation Report 2012 - 2013.The OGP Action Plan 2012-2013 was evaluated by Open Knowledge International as the most ambitious and best-implemented OGP Action plan in the world.
February 11, 2015 - Adoption of the OGP Action Plan 2015 (PDF, 562 kB) by the Resolution of the Government of the Slovak Republic no. 59/2015.
March 2016 - Approval of the Evaluation Report on the implementation of the OGP Action Plan for 2015.
March 1, 2017 - Approval of the OGP Action Plan 2017-2019 (PDF, 906 kB)by the Resolution of the Government of the Slovak Republic no. 104/2017

See the leaflet about OGP (PDF, 409 kB) in Slovakia for more detailed information.