The Deputy Minister for Public Service and Administration, Ayanda Dlodlo, today hosted an Open Government Partnership (OGP) consultation roundtable at the Lord Charles Hotel in Cape Town.
The OGP is a multilateral international voluntary initiative to improve government performance, encourage civic participation and enhance government responsiveness to people.
In her opening address, Deputy Minister Dlodlo gave an overview of the countrywide consultations that have been held saying that “we’ve reached a lot of people through radio stations, door-to-door campaigns by CDWs and Skype”. She emphasised that the consultations were not just for civil society organisations but the society as a whole.
Giving a brief background on the global initiative, the Deputy Minister said South Africa has been a member since September 2011 and sits on the nine member steering committee. Speaking on the reach of the programme to communities the Deputy Minister highlighted that a relationship has been established with community radio stations and traditional leaders “to reach the people.” She emphasised the need to align the OGP and APRM in encouraging best practices.
OGP aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. To achieve these objectives, OGP brings together governments and civil society organisations as true partners. OGP is overseen by a Steering Committee composed of governments and civil society organisations in equal numbers, a unique model that embodies the goal of civic participation.
In compliance with the OGP requirements, South Africa has developed a country action plan and identified seven commitments as concrete steps that government will embark on towards addressing the grand challenge of Service Delivery. The seven commitments are, Develop citizen participation guidelines for government departments, establish Service Delivery Improvement Forums, Implement a “Know Your Service Rights and Responsibilities” campaign, capacity development of anti-corruption officials, develop guidelines on sanctions for corruption related cases, enhance the involvement of civil society at every stage of the budgetary process and develop a portal for environmental management information.
The country action plan, which was developed in consultation with civil society organisations from across the country and citizen inputs from the National Development Plan consultation processes, identified service delivery as the country’s greatest challenge. South Africa will submit its Government Self-Assessment Report to the OGP support unit on 19 April 2013.
A panel discussion was held with participating organisations, South African NGO Coalition (SANGOCO), the Western Cape Destination Marketing, Investment and Trade Promotion Agency (Wesgro) and Ryland Fisher Communications.
For further details contact:
Dumisani Nkwamba
Cell: 082 885 9448
Tel: 012 336 1704
E-mail: dumisanin@dpsa.gov.za
Olebogeng Kgasi
Cell: 076 793 4229
Tel: 012 336 1206
E-mail: olebogengk@dpsa.gov.za
