Open Government Partnership Afghanistan National Action Plan – OGP-A NAP
Afghanistan joined Open Government Partnership in December 2016. Afghan cabinet presented Letter of Interest for joining OGP to replenish civil society role in government policy making. President Ghani while launching the OGP-A Multi-stakeholder forum stated “OGP will provide the grounds for implementing the principles of Afghan Constitution which reflects empowered citizens”. He further reaffirmed the government’s will in fighting corruption and opening the government to citizens.
According to OGP member countries are should co-create a set of commitments to promote for core values of transparency, accountability and public participation and use of technology for service delivery known as the National Action Plan (NAP). A NAP that may include up to two dozens of commitments are for two years and is finalized after consultations between government and civil society organizations and approval by the Multi-Stakeholder Forum.
Integrity Watch Afghanistan led the advocacy for Afghanistan joining the OGP as earlier as 2013 until the government joined in late 2016. Upon Afghanistan signing up the OGP, IWA started a series of awareness and consultation conference and workshops at national and provincial level. IWA held the first consultation workshop in April 2017 with the presence of five dozen of CSOs, followed by training to Provincial Integrity Networks of seven provinces Kunduz, Kapisa, Balkh, Nangarhar, Bamyan, Paktiya and Herat. ACBAR and Afghan Women Network also held awareness and consultation events for their members in May 2017.
Afghan government established OGP secretariat within the Office of the President in June. Thenceforth, IWA assisted the OGP secretariat now called OGP-Afghanistan (OGP-A) to take the lead on development of NAP. After several rounds of consultation, OGP-A General Assembly approved 11 commitments on 28th October 2017 for 2018-2019 Afghanistan NAP and submitted to the Afghan cabinet to give its executive form through a resolution.