In Doboj, on 29 and 30 May this year, there was an inaugural session of the Advisory Council of the “Open Government Partnership” initiative, which was attended by the appointed representatives of the government of all the administration levels and four civil society organisations.
During the inaugural session, doc. Dragan Ćuzulan, PhD, public administration reform coordinator, was elected chairman of the Advisory Council by a consensus, and Elvira Mujkić, project manager of the Transparency International BiH was elected deputy chairman of the Advisory Council.
The Rules of Procedure of this body was adopted at the session, which stipulated, among other things, that the mandate of the chairman and the deputy chairman of the council lasts 2 years with the possibility of re-election, and that the members of this body had the task of coordinating the preparation of the proposal of the Action Plan for implementation of the “Open Government Partnership” initiative with the public administration bodies, in accordance with the constitutional and legal competences of the level of authority that appointed them. In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, the work of the Advisory Council is public.
On the second day, there was also a workshop on preparations for draft of the action plan for the OGP. The work on the action planning implies a close cooperation between the public administration bodies of all the levels of authority in BiH and the civil society organisations, with the objective of more quality definition of priorities and activities. Strengthening dialogue and cooperation between the authorities and the civil society is deemed a key step in drafting and implementation of the framework action plan for implementation of the initiative.
For our country, it is foreseen to draft the framework action plan consisting of the action plan of the Council of Ministers of BiH, the action plans of the entity governments and the Government of the Brčko District of BiH, in order to implement the obligations from the initiative.
The multilateral initiative the Open Government Partnership represents a global effort of several involved members with the objective of improvement of work of the governments in the world. The Open Government Partnership is basically an initiative whose objective is ensuring a concrete progress in the field of transparency and openness of work of the public administration bodies, inclusion and strengthening of the citizens and the civil society, a combat against corruption, and use of the new technologies for improvement of the quality of services the public administration provides to the citizens.
A support in organisation of an inaugural session of the Advisory Council was provided by the Programme of Strengthening of Public Institutions in BiH, which by the order of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany is implemented by the German GIZ.