By Toby McIntosh
Two upcoming summits. Same pro-democracy cause. But very different strategies: one flashy, one determinedly plodding.
First comes the Summit for Democracy (Dec. 9-10), the Biden administration’s high-profile effort to rally democracies around core values. Attending government leaders have been asked to make specific commitments and to report back on their progress in a year.
Less than a week later will come the summit of the Open Government Partnership (Dec. 15-17), a 10-year-old multilateral organization with very similar purposes and with established methods for encouraging the creation of specific goals and the measurement progress.
The 78 OGP member countries prepare “national action plans” in conjunction with civil society. Their performance is evaluated through an independent review mechanism.
But the OGP seems very much in the shadows. Biden’s summit was called “a first-of-its kind gathering” by Reuters.
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Role for the OGP?
The Biden administration’s plans does not appear to envision a role for the OGP, although, EYE has learned, President Biden is scheduled to speak at the OGP summit.
Ironically, the OGP was largely a US creation, announced by President Obama in September of 2011. Samantha Power, now the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, was instrumental in OGP’s founding.
But the S4D organizers have yet to outline any follow-up plan beyond a second conference next year.
A suggestion that the OGP could be “the implementation arm” for the summit was made by Sanjay Pradhan, the OGP’s Chief Executive Officer, in his Nov. 18 review of OGP accomplishments.
OGP CEO Makes the Case
The OGP has ” three unique attributes,” Pradhan said in comments to EYE, “that enables it to serve as implementation and accountability arm of Global Summits like S4D which otherwise can indeed risk being talk shops.”
“First, the high-level Summit speeches can be translated into concrete country actions through OGP action plans,” Pradhan said. He said that after the 2016 London Anticorruption Summit, 20 OGP countries translated their commitments into country actions through OGP action plans.
“Second, civil society as an equal partner in OGP helps ensure follow-up and accountability,” he said.
“Third, OGP has the Independent Reporting Mechanism which can track whether country actions are implemented and ambitious,” Pradhan said.
OGP Record Reviewed
The OGP for a decade has grappled with the challenge of encouraging member countries to ramp up their pro-democracy goals and meet them; all without juicy carrots or big sticks.
The OGP’s quantitative results could be seen as underwhelming, but three professors who are writing a book on the OGP, found that in addition to whether commitments are fulfilled, there are positive benefits that derive from the unique process itself.
Judged by the OGP’s carefully kept metrics, the member countries haven’t achieved most of what they promised to do, according to the authors Dan Berliner, Alex Ingrams and Suzanne Piotrowski. Their article was published in July 2021, Process effects of multistakeholder institutions: Theory and evidence from the Open Government Partnership, with the book version to be published next year.
The OGP will soon release its own assessment. OGP CEO Pradhan highlighted that of the 2,000 reform pledges reviewed though the Independent Review Mechanism, “over 20 percent were assessed to have made government significantly more open.”
The three academics pointed out that “just over one-third (0.365) of all commitments were both ambitious and implemented.” They commented, “Given that governments choose their own commitments, thus enabling them to “select in” to commitments that are least costly, or already planned or in progress, this is a low figure indeed.”
The trio describe the OGP as a “soft” multilateral organization with “experimentalist governance” that features “highly flexible commitments and weak enforcement.” The OGP is jointly run by a steering committee of equal numbers of representatives from governments and from civil society.
“This structure offered many reasons for skepticism,” the academics wrote, continuing, “The flexible nature of commitments, decentralized monitoring, and absence of any sanctions for non-implementation all suggested that membership was ripe for opportunism and window-dressing. And indeed, commitments under the OGP have often been narrow, superficial, would have been undertaken anyway, or were poorly implemented.”
However, the OGP process has a silver lining, the authors said, describing “three process-driven pathways of change.”
The less quantifiable, positive benefits are:
- “spreading norms and policy models”
- “empowering actors inside and outside of government;” and
- “creating linkages and coalitions.”
OGP Self-Assessment on the Way
“It’s been a rollercoaster ride with incredible bright spots and impact, despite a tough decade for democracy,” tweeted Powell recently. In an article he summarized 10 lesson from OGP’s record, saying the organization “has offered a window into a different type of cooperation that can result in real impact.”
He concluded:
To me, this is the challenge for OGP as we enter our second decade: to make the fragments of success add up to more than the sum of their parts, and show a vision for a new version of democracy that is more resilient to authoritarian threats, and more responsive to its citizens.
The OGP plans to issue an anniversary assessment “Vital Signs” at its conference, according to a sneak peek on its website.
A small sampling of the frank findings includes:
- The strength of this civil society engagement predicts positive outcomes.
- OGP processes are becoming more participatory over time.
- The average number of commitments per plan has dropped, the number of policy areas and sectors covered has grown, and the number of ambitious commitments has declined.
- The difference in the implementation rate between the highest- and lowest-income OGP countries is more than 30%, even when controlling for other factors.
- The number of commitments related to beneficial ownership and open contracting is significantly increasing. However, many anti-corruption topics—such as whistleblowing and lobbying—still see few commitments, despite their effectiveness.
Another evaluation is coming, too, supporting the basic design of the OGP while making suggestions.
“High-level findings and takeaways” from of a study commissioned by the OGP from Oxford Policy Management were “underlined by the conclusion that OGP’s Theory of Change works,” according to the minutes of the OGP Thematic Leadership Subcommittee Nov.16 meeting. The full report will be released during the OGP summit.
The value of global events is identified in one finding. As summarized in the minutes:
Global events are helpful for driving policy agendas, as action-forcing moments, as well as supporting and linking with national-level reforms. There are challenges in aligning national and international-level progress, which can move at different speeds.
OGP at 10, EITI at 20: Where to next?, is a reflection by Mark Robinson, the Executive Director of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. His October article is in part an appreciation of the OGP’s approach. “The EITI Board adopted a set of strategic priorities for 2021-2022 that help identify areas for strengthening complementarity with the OGP,” he states.
No Specific Official Outcomes Outlined
There will be many speeches at the two-day Summit for Democracy, described as a “flagship presidential initiative,” to which 108 countries were invited.
Participants are being asked “to make and fulfill concrete commitments in line with the Summit’s three pillars: (1) defending against authoritarianism; (2) fighting corruption; and (3) promoting respect for human rights – domestically and abroad,” said Uzra Zeya, Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, on Nov. 20 at a conference in Lithuania. The US will be making commitments, too, she said.
“A year from now, at a second Summit, we will take stock of our progress, and hope to show that we have risen to the challenge of this uniquely complex moment,” Zeya said, using the favored “Year of Action” descriptor. She did not mention the OGP.
Asked about follow-up to the summit, a State Department spokesman wrote EYE Dec. 3: “Off the record, we wouldn’t want to get ahead of any developments or potential announcements from the event. But feel free to follow-up if this isn’t part of what is announced and the conclusion of the summit.”
On Dec. 6, the White House issued a US Strategy on Countering Corruption.
In the lead-up the summit, there is a schedule of official side events.
Curiously, not all sessions were open. On Dec. 6, co-hosted by the US and the UK, there was a “Closed Session” that “will focus on best practices for addressing disinformation and advancing an open and transparent information system.”
Observers Offer Suggestions for Follow-Up
While much of the pre-summit attention has focused on who got invitations (Pakistan and Taiwan), and who didn’t (Turkey and Hungary), there has been limited focus on what will happen afterwards.
Two foreign policy experts at the Atlantic Council said that for S4D to be “a serious summit” it should include “an agenda that focuses on cutting-edge and meaty challenges to democracy (such as corruption, authoritarian tech, and inequality), sets clear goals, and demands follow-up work.” The Nov. 9 article, How to get Biden’s democracy summit right was written by Daniel Fried, Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, and Rose Jackson, director of the Democracy & Tech Initiative at the Atlantic Council.
Commenting on post-summit options, they wrote:
The event could set parameters and principles, obtain pledges from companies, and refer action and questions to other entities, such as the US-EU Trade and Technology Council, the Group of Seven (G7), the Financial Action Task Force, the Freedom Online Coalition, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and regional bodies such as the Organization of American States or the African Union. But officials could alternatively decide to set up post-summit working groups and initiatives to define standards or monitor compliance. And it can certainly be an opportunity for increased funding to civil society and journalists, as well as a doubling down on commitments for the world’s democracies to speak and act collectively.
Another commentary, in Foreign Policy, says, “The long-term success of the summit will require specificity and sustainability.” The Nov. 12 article was by Richard Fontaine, chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security, and Jared Cohen, founder and CEO of Jigsaw at Alphabet Inc. and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
After outlining three “pillars” around which action should be organized, they conclude that “the summit should announce a series of working groups, each chaired by an attending country, that will meet soon after to develop detailed work plans.” They add, “At the follow-on summit next year, groups should report on and review of outcomes over the last 12 months, while making concrete plans for the long game against autocracies ahead.”
Civil Society Holding Parallel Summit
Civil society organizations will be represented at the summit, but few CSOs have been consulted about their national leaders’ speeches.
The CSO website pointedly says, “Only a small number of invited governments have engaged domestic or international civil society on what those commitments might be. This means the commitments are less likely to be representative of what citizens in invited countries feel should be the priorities for strengthening their democracies.”
One session, on Dec. 6, is From High-Level Talk to Grassroots Action: How We Can Support Civic Actors to Achieve S4D Commitments, organized by Accountability Lab and the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center.
A CSO participants list has not yet been posted.
CSOs have established a website and a slate of about 50 virtual events.
The website also is usefully publishing relevant articles.
A global multi-stakeholder coalition for democracy, Global Democracy Coalition, is gathering in a virtual forum to be held for 24 hours on Dec. 7, 2021, convened by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).
The OGP has yet to post a schedule for its virtual conference.
The Republic of Korea will host the seventh OGP Global Summit from Dec. 15 to 17, for which registration is open.
The Alliance of Democracies Foundation, a Danish non-profit organization, has said that the focus of its June 9-10 Democracy Summit, which it says will be in-person with 500 attendees, “will be a civil society stocktaking of the commitments made at the governmental Summit.”
Below the Radar
The press generally has ignored the OGP over the years.
I watched the OGP grow first-hand for about six years as about the only reporter who regularly chronicled the OGP’s formation, writing dozens of articles for a website, FreedomInfo.org, which closed in 2017. I attended the first three OGP annual summits, but have only watched from a distance in recent years.
The OGP, committed to engagement not confrontation, kept a low profile. It was purposefully slow to admonish member countries who failed to meet their commitments or violated the OGP principles.
And while the OGP graded country performances through the use of independent reviewers, their often candid reports were largely ignored by the national media.
The US’s participation in the OGP went “dormant” during the Trump presidency, and the Biden administration has been slow to get reengaged, as described in a blog post by Alex Howard, who writes E Pluribus Unum.
The OGP has persisted and expanded. Its first year budget was $1.5 million. The 2021 budget is for more than $13 million. Its income comes from member countries and philanthropies.
Not entirely coincidently, the supporting foundations themselves organized in the wake of the OGP’s creation and now loosely coordinate through the Transparency and Accountability Initiative.
Academics who study the burgeoning field of “transparency” got more organized during the OGP’s lifetime.
The First Global Conference on Transparency Research was held in 2011 at Rutgers University and the seventh conference is being planned for next year in Copenhagen (May 18-20) with the theme, “Rethinking Transparency: Challenging Ideals and Embracing Paradoxes.”
For a long view on measuring governance, read a recent article, It’s complicated: Lessons from 25 years of measuring governance, by Daniel Kaufmann, one of the founders of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI).
