Speaking at the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Summit in London on Thursday, 31 November, President Kikwete of Tanzania announced a commitment to enacting a Freedom of Information law.
"We are now working on enacting a freedom of information law. By April next year, the parliament will enact this bill, giving the common citizen the right to have information from government.
"If people want information on how medicines are distributed, if people want information on budgets for their primary school, they should have the right to that information. If people want information on when they will get water supply, they should have that right. When people ask for this information, they should not be seen as trying to venture into areas which are not theirs."
This commitment represents a big step forward for access to information and open government in Tanzania. As always, however, the real test is delivery. Tanzania has made strong statements about the OGP before, such as when Kikwete spoke at the previous summit, in Brazil in April 2012:
"I promise that we will do our best to live up to the expectations of this partnership to promote transparency and accountability of our government to the people of Tanzania. I wish to reaffirm that our political will to achieve the OGP goals will not falter because open government is at the heart of the contract between state and citizens"
So is Tanzania is living up to these bold words? The sceptics out there are not so sure.
Just six months remain on Tanzania's first, two-year OGP Action Plan, and delivery has been disappointing. By my calculations, of the 25 commitments in the plan, only two have been met in full: to publish a citizens' budget and to establish an OGP focal person within government. Given that the first of these was already happening before the OGP began and was largely delivered by Policy Forum, an NGO network, it's not great news.
But condemning Tanzania might be premature. Though other commitments may have been met only in part, there is significant progress to report. Take a look at the How Do I (Nifanyeje?) website, the new exam results open data site and the National Audit Office website, or have a peak at the Ministry of Water's forthcoming Waterpoint Mapping site. They're all part of Tanzania's OGP Action Plan commitments. None of them is perfect, they may not be beautiful and some of them are not finished, but at least they're something.
Still, overall progress has been slow and disappointing. A lot of work needs to be done if Tanzania is going to prove the OGP sceptics wrong. In particular, here are some questions that Tanzania needs to answer.
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1. What will the government do differently next time?
Most of Tanzania's commitments in the first OGP Action Plan have not been met. So how will the government make sure it delivers on the next commitments, including the promise of a Freedom of Information Act? Will someone be held accountable for it?
2. Will the next plan include some more ambitious commitments in key OGP areas?
Tanzania's first Action Plan covered a lot of different issues, but lacked ambition in key areas. The Freedom of Information promise is great, but how about making similar commitments to open contracting and public officials' asset disclosures?
3. Will the Tanzanian government be more open about open government?
Tanzania's engagement with the OGP has been far from perfect. Aside from the key gaps in the Action Plan and slow pace of delivery, the process has not lived up to the expected standards of transparency and participation, as the government's own progress report admits. The Action Plan is not even available on the OGP website (though it can be found on the Ministry of Water's site), and very little information on progress has been made public.
4. Will the government fully embrace open data standards?
Even where Tanzania has fulfilled some parts of the first Action Plan, there are signs that the commitment to "open" is only partial. The Waterpoint mapping website, for example, is designed to make only some of the data public, and the National Audit Office site publishes reports in pdf format rather than machine-readable formats.
5. How does the government reconcile the suspension of three newspapers and the prime minister's exhortation in parliament for the police to "beat" protesters with Tanzania's commitment to open government?
Open government means much more than delivering on a list of technical actions. It involves a change of mindset and a different approach to how government works.
I sense that there is a struggle going on within government. Some ministers and officials support the open government ideal, others couldn't care less. As is usually the case, in parts of government where there is more support, where individual politicians or civil servants have been willing to push, there has been quicker progress.
The benefits of open government are worth struggling for. And the Open Government Partnership, for all its imperfections, may be one of the best mechanisms to help us achieve greater transparency and accountability.
Having listened to what President Kikwete said in London, I am excited by the prospect of a step change in access to information in Tanzania. But experience still teaches me to be cautious. Those of us with an interest in Tanzania and in open government now need to keep up the pressure. Because even politicians sometimes forget that actions speak louder than words.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Ben Taylor
Quelle/Source: The Guardian, 01.11.2013
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