Public Consultations on Draft Action Plan for the Implementation of the Open Government Partnership Initiative Conducted

On Monday 26 March, organized by the Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs, public consultations about the draft Action Plan for the implementation of the Open Government Partnership initiative in Croatia 2012-2013 were conducted.

 

 

The purpose of the consultations was to discuss with the members of the interested public a draft Action Plan, which was presented on the occasion, and its expected impact on strengthening the openness and transparency of public authority bodies in the forthcoming period. Namely, the Republic of Croatia confirmed its participation in global international initiative Open Government Partnership in August 2011. The purpose of the initiative is to ensure concrete progress in the areas of transparency and openness in the work of public authority bodies; involving and empowering citizens and civil society; fight against corruption; and using new technologies for the improvement of the quality of services which public administration provides to citizens. To this effect the draft Action Plan was prepared which includes proposals of priority measures and activities pertaining to fiscal transparency, access to information, using information technology and citizen and civil society participation.

 

Opening addresses on the occasion were given by Nikola Kristić, Deputy Chairman of the Council for the Open Government Partnership initiative and Igor Vidačak, acting Head of the Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs. Igor Vidačak presented the current draft Action Plan and informed the participants about the next steps. Based on the results of the public debate and received statements from the state administration bodies which were appointed implementing or co-implementing bodies of the Action Plan measures, by the end of March the proposal of the Action Plan will be drawn up so that the Croatian Government can adopt it on its first subsequent session. Thereafter, the Action Plan will be presented at the annual conference of the Open Government Partnership in Brazil on 17 and 18 April.