Tallinn, Estonia – Publish What You Pay (PWYP Indonesia), as one part of civil society actively involved in the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative since more than a decade ago, participated in the 8th OGP Summit. Since 2011, the OGP Summit has been held six times, with the host countries being the UK, Mexico, France, Georgia, Canada, and South Korea, and most recently in Tallinn, Estonia.
OGP Summit 2023 was held in Tallinn, Estonia, on September 4-8, 2023, raising 6 (six) strategic issues related to open government, including Anti-corruption, Civic Space and public participation, Democracy Digital governance, Justice, and Climate and environment. The OGP Global Summit was organized to discuss and accelerate open government initiatives on the priority strategic issues above. The final result of the OGP Summit 2023 is the OGP Steering Committee Tallinn Commitment.
The participants of OGP Summit 2023 consist of leaders of member countries, leaders of member local governments, civil society, development partners, and other stakeholders. 11 strategy track sessions in the main event of OGP Summit 2023 aim to strengthen the role of open government at the local and national levels, in addition to more than 30 thematic sessions that discuss priority strategic issues.
In OGP Summit 2023, PWYP Indonesia contributed and actively participated in several activities, including:
Sharing lessons learned in the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Country Stakeholders Exchange for Democracy and Accountability, organized by the OGP Support Unit on September 5, 2023. This activity brought together government and civil society reformers from Colombia, Ghana, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, and the Philippines to discuss the progress made in opening up their governments through OGP, what opportunities exist to deepen the impact of open government work in their countries; identify common challenges that reformers may experience/anticipate limiting the impact of their work and explore ways to navigate them; and identify support needs and opportunities that exist to strengthen their countries’ OGP processes. In particular, PWYP Indonesia shared Indonesia’s journey in OGP, including successes such as contract disclosure and Beneficial Ownership (BO) disclosure. Government and CSO efforts to ensure OGP sustainability were linked to the upcoming elections in February 2024.
Furthermore, PWYP Indonesia also witnessed the signing of the MoU between the European Union, represented by Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, and OGP, represented by Sanjay Pradhan, CEO of OGP, on September 7, 2023. This MoU is the EU’s support for the Partnership for Democracy and Accountability program, which aims to strengthen democracy and improve the lives of citizens worldwide through open, inclusive, and accountable government. The program is expected to support genuine government efforts – in anti-corruption and accountability, gender, youth, inclusion, civic space, and participation – globally and in partner countries, including Colombia, Ghana, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, and the Philippines.
Sharing experiences of CSOs in Indonesia in using Beneficial Ownership (BO) data for advocacy work, especially in the natural resources sector, in the Thematic Session “Connecting Global to Country Action to Fight Transnational Corruption: How Can Beneficial Ownership Transparency Drive Change?” organized by Open Ownership, on September 7, 2023. In the session, several panelists, including Alhaji Garba Abubakar, Registrar General, Corporate Affairs Commission, Government of Nigeria; Mark Robinson, Executive Director, EITI; and Kateryna Ryzhenko, Deputy Executive Director for Legal Affairs, Transparency International Ukraine; PWYP Indonesia also conveyed the challenges faced by CSOs when finding the name of BOs abroad that were indicated to have committed crimes.
PWYP Indonesia collaborated with the Energy for Growth Initiative, Ghana, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Estonia, to organize one of the 30 thematic sessions, “A Just and Open Government for the Energy Transition.”
The thematic session discussed why the energy transition and achieving global energy needs must be supported by transparency, data availability, participation, accountability, co-creation, and good governance. The session, which around 115 participants from various countries attended, also provided space for speakers and participants to share open and transparent government approaches to the energy transition by highlighting case studies and country experiences, identifying risks, and early learnings on how OGP processes can build social trust and broader participation relevant to the global community.
Present as speakers in the thematic session were Aly Zulficar Rahim, Program Manager of Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA), The World Bank; Bohdan Serebrennikov, Program Manager of DiXi Group; Gritta Anindarini, Deputy Director of Indonesian Center for Environmental Law (ICEL) Indonesia; Ian Mwinga, Head of Secretariat of Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives (EITI) Zambia; and R. Alam Surya Putra, Director of Environmental Governance Program, The Asia Foundation (TAF) and opened by Kadri Lepp, Director General Department of Connectivity & Climate Diplomacy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia.
Starting from the role as a civil society representative in the International OGP Steering Committee (SC) 2013-2014, involvement in several activities such as the OGP Summit, OGP Local, Asia Pacific Leadership Forum (APLF), and overseeing the implementation of OGI Action Plan I to VII. Currently, PWYP Indonesia is overseeing the implementation of Action Plan VII (2023-2024), especially on the action of Optimizing the Implementation of Beneficial Ownership Data Disclosure through Strengthening Verification and Utilization of Beneficial Ownership Data, as well as the action of Developing a One Data System for Natural Resources-Environment (SDA-LH) that Ensures Openness of Data and Information on Licensing and Spatial Planning. PWYP Indonesia collaborates with the Government of West Nusa Tenggara Province and West Sumbawa Regency to implement OGP Local.
PWYP Indonesia also attended the OGP Summit 2023 on September 6-7, 2023, starting from the opening plenary, strategy track session, main event, thematic session and closing plenary; several bilateral meetings with the delegation of the Republic of Indonesia, starting from the Indonesian Ambassador to Finland & Estonia; Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation Agency (BKSAP) DPR RI, West Sumbawa Regency Government; witnessed the awarding of the OGP Summit 2023, where Indonesia received an award for the “Expansion of Legal Aid for Vulnerable Individuals and Groups in Indonesia” program initiative, a collaboration between the National Legal Development Agency (BPHN) of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights (Kemenkumham) and several CSOs in Indonesia; and compiled a press release of the Civil Society Coalition Statement on the Implementation of the OGP Summit 2023 in Tallinn, Estonia with Indonesian CSOs attending the OGP Summit 2023.
Author: Aryanto Nugroho