PWYP Indonesia, with support from the Open Government Partnership- European Union, held a meeting of the CSO Steering Committee of Open Government Partnership (OGP) Indonesia on Wednesday, 26 August 2026, in Jakarta. The meeting discussed the progress of Open Government Indonesia (OGI), challenges in implementing the eighth OGI National Action Plan (NAP VIII), and civil society input and recommendations to be delivered to the OGP Support Unit (OGP SU) during its visit to Jakarta in September 2026.
The meeting was attended by member organizations of the CSO Steering Committee of OGP Indonesia, namely the Indonesia Judicial Research Society (IJRS), the International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID), Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), Transparency International Indonesia (TII), Wahana Visi Indonesia (WVI), the Association for Elections and Democracy (Perludem), and Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Indonesia.
Indonesia has been one of the founding countries of OGP since 2011. The government and civil society organizations develop the OGI National Action Plan through a co-creation process. Indonesia is currently implementing NAP VIII for the 2026–2027 period, which contains 19 commitments carried out jointly by ministries/agencies and civil society organizations. However, during the consolidation discussion, participants noted that the implementation of these commitments still faces a number of challenges.
Rinto from INFID said that OGI's progress needs to be presented more critically to the OGP SU. According to the first-semester monitoring and evaluation results, implementation currently stands at around 50 percent, down from around 60 percent previously. He argued that this decline should be examined further to understand the factors behind it, including the possibility that some achievements in the previous period were largely administrative in nature.
Several participants also highlighted commitments that stalled when dealing directly with ministries/agencies. Agus Sarwono from Transparency International Indonesia, for example, observed that several agendas had shown little meaningful progress, including the action plan on a whistleblowing system. A number of planned regulations and policies have also yet to be formally numbered or followed up.
According to the meeting participants, this situation shows that progress in open government cannot be measured merely by the existence of commitments or the fulfillment of administrative targets in the NAP document. What matters more is the extent to which these commitments bring about changes in governance practices, open up public access to information, and give people space to participate meaningfully in decision-making. Implementation of the NAP should therefore be assessed not only by administrative achievements but also by the impact and changes it produces for the public.
Another concern raised was meaningful participation. Almas from ICW said that discussions on government openness should not only look at NAP implementation but also at whether the public is genuinely given space to take part in policymaking. She suggested preparing a joint statement or position brief that would present a more complete picture of the state of open government in Indonesia.
The discussion also addressed shrinking civic space and civil freedom. Participants considered that issues such as limited room for participation, restricted access to information, and cases of intimidation and criminalization should be viewed within the framework of OGP principles. Conveying these conditions to the OGP SU was deemed important so that discussions about Indonesia do not stop at the administrative achievements of the NAP.
Drias from Wahana Visi Indonesia (WVI) added that the meeting with the OGP SU should provide a fuller picture of governance conditions in Indonesia, including the dynamics within ministries/agencies. In her view, the challenges in implementing commitments stem not only from budget constraints but also from issues of coordination, capacity, politics, and leadership in advancing the openness agenda.
Beyond NAP implementation, the discussion also covered broader aspects of government openness. One of these was transparency and the right to information. Participants noted that problems persist in public access to important information, including information related to policies and budgets. Concrete, documented cases are therefore needed to demonstrate the actual state of information openness on the ground.
Public participation was another focus. Participants urged that the drafting of policies and regulations be assessed by the extent to which the public is given space to be heard, considered, and involved in decision-making. In this context, national policies should be analyzed not only in terms of their substance but also their drafting process, availability of information, public participation, impact on communities, and complaint mechanisms.
The meeting also encouraged linking national issues to OGP principles rather than stopping at normative criticism. Several current cases in the regions were mentioned as material to show how government policies affect communities, including in disaster management, the condition of local governments, and the relationship between central and regional policies.
Findings from various policy papers prepared by CSOs were also considered important material for the meeting with the OGP SU. One question to be raised is the extent to which the OGP Support Unit can help strengthen pressure on the Indonesian government based on these findings. Participants also discussed the possibility of using OGP membership mechanisms and standards to push for more substantive implementation of commitments.
As a follow-up, the consolidation called for the preparation of a joint civil society brief for the meeting with the OGP Support Unit. The brief will combine NAP VIII monitoring findings, policy papers, and concrete cases to illustrate the state of government openness in Indonesia. In addition to evaluating commitment achievements, this joint position will highlight issues of transparency, public participation, access to information, and civic space, and identify the forms of support OGP can provide to encourage more substantive implementation of commitments
One proposed form of collective response is a joint statement or position brief grounded in data and concrete cases. This document is intended not only to serve as an evaluation of the eighth Open Government Indonesia National Action Plan (RAN OGI VIII), but also as a basis for civil society to deliver more targeted recommendations to the OGP Support Unit and the Government of Indonesia.