Although all ten cantonal governments have an official website and a functional search engine with the exception of the government of West Herzegovina Canton, no government has a published organization chart, and the Prime Minister’s biography can only be found with the government of the Herzegovina – Neretva Canton, as it was said at the workshop for civil servants organized on May 18, 2022, in Sarajevo.
The results of the monitoring of the openness of cantonal governments and assemblies in BiH for 2021, which included all ten cantons, were presented at the workshop.
“The results showed that only one institution satisfies slightly more than 50 percent of the indicators, and it is evident that the results, of the governments and of the assemblies, could be improved,” was stated at the workshop.
The workshop was organized by the Association of Citizens (UG) Why not and Transparency International in BiH to present the activities of the Advisory Body of the Council of Ministers of BiH for the implementation of the initiative “Open Government Partnership” (OGP).
According to Danira Karović, Project Manager from UG Why Not, only three cantonal governments – Tuzla Canton, Bosnian – Podrinje Canton and Zenica – Doboj Canton have published a Program / Work Plan, while quarterly or semi-annual work reports cannot be found in any government.
“Slightly more than half of the cantonal governments timely publish the agenda with materials for the next session, but this is not the practice in the case of the governments of Bosnian – Podrinje Canton Goražde, Una-Sana Canton, Posavina Canton and Herzegovina – Neretva Canton,” said Karović.
According to State Coordinator for Public Administration Reform Dragan Ćuzulan, the Public Administration Reform Coordinator’s Office (PARCO) has nominated two measures which are currently in implementation phase.
“One refers to the improvement of proactive transparency, and the other to the coordination of the development of the open data ecosystem (public sub-act good). “Some activities have been completed, some are being implemented, and some will be implemented by the beginning of September 2023,” announced Ćuzulan.
He explained that the first measure aims to increase the involvement of institutions in research on the implementation of proactive transparency standards, improve the capacity of civil servants and heads of institutions on proactive transparency.
“Also, our goal is to conduct an annual survey on the fulfillment of proactive transparency standards and report that to the Council of Ministers in BiH, as well as to upgrade the software for measuring and researching on proactive transparency,” added Ćuzulan.
He notes that the Office is currently conducting the fourth survey among the institutions of BiH, after which it will publicly present data on the transparency of the administration.
“As for the second measure, through a technical support project, a pilot project for the development of the IT application Open Data Portal for the Council of Ministers of BiH was completed, and key users were trained on the use of the application, and the first test data set of the Agency for Statistics in BiH was set up. The portal is modeled on the architecture of the European open data portal and it is using the same and compatible technologies “, explained Ćuzulan.