Jakarta – Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Indonesia, in collaboration with the National Secretariat of Open Government Indonesia (OGI), convened a public discussion titled “Mainstreaming Open Government in National Development Targets: Reflecting on 15 Years of OGP and Strategies for Driving Systemic Impact in Indonesia” in Central Jakarta on 21 May 2026.
The event was part of Open Government Week 2026, organized by PWYP Indonesia with support from the European Union and the Open Government Partnership (EU-OGP). The discussion featured Maharani Wibowo, Director of International Relations at Indonesia’s Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas) and Chair of the OGI Implementation Team; Rospita Vici Paulyn, Commissioner and Head of Research and Documentation at the Central Information Commission (KIP); Rocky Francis Hunila, Policy Analyst at the Assistant Deputy for Government Digital Transformation Strategy and Policy Formulation, Ministry of Administrative and Bureaucratic Reform (PANRB); and governance and open government expert Alamsyah Saragih. The discussion was moderated by Aryanto Nugroho, National Coordinator of PWYP Indonesia.
“This theme is important because it allows us to assess the extent to which OGP has contributed to development progress while identifying the challenges ahead. Reflecting on 15 years of OGP is especially significant for Indonesia as one of the founding countries of the initiative. We therefore need to examine Indonesia’s contribution to OGP implementation, not only at the national level but also throughout its development at the global level,” Aryanto said in his opening remarks.
Under the implementation of OGI, Indonesia has now developed its Eighth National Action Plan (NAP), comprising 19 commitments supported by 17 ministries and government agencies and involving 30 civil society organizations. Maharani acknowledged that considerable challenges remain, including sustaining long-term commitments, fiscal constraints, and the country’s democratic conditions. At the global level, Indonesia is currently classified as having an “Obstructed Civic Space.”
Several governance indicators also raise concerns about the future of open government in Indonesia. Looking back over 15 years of OGP implementation, the country’s overall performance on key governance indicators has generally deteriorated. Democratic governance and civil liberties indices have declined, as have government effectiveness and regulatory quality in the World Governance Indicators. The Public Information Openness Index (IKIP) and the Indonesian Democracy Index have also recorded downward trends.
According to Maharani, however, these declining indicators reinforce rather than diminish the importance of OGP. She argued that OGP implementation has served as a safeguard against even steeper declines. “On the global stage, Indonesia continues to be viewed as one of the stronger performers among OGP member countries, including in comparison with countries such as the Philippines,” she said.
From a bureaucratic perspective, the government is seeking to transform commitments into measurable development targets by embedding open government principles within national development planning documents. Rocky explained that mainstreaming open government ensures openness is no longer treated merely as a voluntary commitment but instead becomes an official target and performance indicator in national planning.
“The direction we want to pursue is a shift in mindset—citizens should no longer be viewed simply as service recipients, but as stakeholders who have ownership of public services. They participate in designing services, providing feedback, and ultimately sharing responsibility for the outcomes. Success is therefore not solely the government’s achievement but a collective one. This is what we mean by citizen as stakeholder,” he said.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s public information disclosure remains in a concerning state. Based on the latest IKIP assessment conducted by the Central Information Commission, no province has achieved the “good” category, with all provinces falling into either the “moderate” or “poor” categories.
Rospita outlined several key findings behind this situation, including persistent bureaucratic resistance to transparency, limited substantive understanding of openness among public officials, inconsistent commitment from Information and Documentation Management Officers (PPID) depending on leadership, constrained program implementation due to budget limitations, low public awareness of the right to information, and inadequate understanding of transparency obligations among public institutions.
She also highlighted the difficult conditions faced by Regional Information Commissions, many of which operate with extremely limited resources. Challenges include geographical barriers, inadequate infrastructure, and low salaries. Outside Java, support from regional governments for these institutions remains particularly weak.
To address these issues, Rospita explained that the Central Information Commission is advocating several amendments through the limited revision of Law No. 14 of 2008 on Public Information Disclosure. These proposals include financing Provincial Information Commissions directly through the state budget (APBN) to reduce interference from regional governments; making Information Commission rulings legally binding without requiring appeals to the Administrative Court (PTUN) or the Supreme Court; shortening dispute resolution procedures, which currently can take up to three months; introducing reward and punishment mechanisms for applicants submitting excessive or transactional information requests; and ensuring that information required for periodic disclosure should not have to proceed through formal information dispute hearings.
Closing the discussion, Alamsyah emphasized that public information disclosure and open government are closely related but fundamentally different concepts. Public information disclosure is only one mechanism for enabling effective collaboration under an open government framework. A transparent government, he argued, is not necessarily an open government in the substantive sense.
“In Indonesia, we have never actually formulated clear indicators for measuring open government itself. Every year the Information Commission assesses public information disclosure, but that is different from measuring open government. This remains one of our major unfinished tasks,” he concluded.