Bearing in mind the many benefits that the application of open government standards brings to citizens, primarily through the improvement of public service provision, greater accessibility of state administration bodies and ultimately greater public trust as key factors of sustainable economic and social development, but also taking into account the need for continuous exchange and mutual support among the countries participating in this global initiative, the Government of the Republic of Croatia is determined to continue with the implementation of the Open Government Partnership Initiative in the Republic of Croatia.
Taking into account previous experiences and lessons learned, in 2016 Croatia started the drafting of the third Action plan for implementation of the Open Government Partnership Initiative in the Republic of Croatia. The Action Plan was developed in cooperation with a wide range of stakeholders from various sectors and based on a wide public debate.
The Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs organized two rounds of public consultation on the draft Action Plan, and a series of working meetings were held. The meetings were attended by representatives of the Council of the Open Government Partnership Initiative, as well as representatives of state administration bodies and civil society organizations. In addition, the priorities of the Action Plan were presented at a public conference "Partnership for an Open Croatia" held in May 2017 in Zagreb. During the year 2018 two sessions of the Council of the Open Government Partnership Initiative were held while at the 3rd session of the Council, held in August 2018, the final proposal of the Action Plan for the implementation of the Open Government Partnership Initiative for the period up to 2020 has been established.
The Government of the Republic of Croatia adopted the
Action Plan for the Implementation of the Open Government Partnership for the period up to 2020 at a session held on 20 December 2018. The new Action Plan envisages the implementation of 15 measures and 48 implementation activities that will be implemented by 30 August 2020 in 5 key areas:
- Transparency,
- Openness,
- Participation by citizens/civil society in processes of forming, implementing and monitoring public,
- Open Government Partnership at the local and regional levels;
- Sustainability of the OGP Initiative.
At the 49th session of the Government of the Republic of Croatia held on 18 March 2021, the
Report on the implementation of the Action Plan for the implementation of the Open Government Partnership initiative in the Republic of Croatia for the period up to 2020 was adopted.
Out of a total of 48 activities, 26 of them were fully implemented, while a total of 10 activities were carried out to a significant extent, which is why it can be concluded that 75% of the activities were implemented fully or to a greater extent. Ten activities were carried out to a lesser extent (more than 20%), mainly due to insufficient financial and human resources, and the coronavirus pandemic. In the coming period, attempts will be made to find resources for their implementation. Implementation has not started at all for 2 planned activities, i.e., less than 5% of them.
Given that the activities of the Action Plan are largely related to the adoption of new normative solutions to other documents, it will be possible to assess the concrete effects of these activities only in the coming period. Nonetheless, some very significant results have been achieved in the implementation of the Action Plan with direct benefits for citizens:
- The implementation of the Act on the Right to Access Information has been improved, and the tendency of continuous improvement will continue in the following period. Regarding fiscal transparency, it is necessary to emphasize the numerous activities of the Ministry of Finance in the context of opening data in machine-readable form and various databases adapted for use by citizens. A significant result is certainly the adoption of the Act on Financing Political Activities, Election Campaigns and Referenda, but also the Act on the Protection of Reporters of Irregularities and the upgrade of the electronic voting system of the Croatian Parliament. In this implementation period, the opening of data also continued, which was also used in the context of the coronavirus crisis, and the continued development of new e-services within the e-Citizens system is notable, which increased by 290,000 in the first eight months of 2020, i.e. 36%, and currently has just over a million users. The number of available services is also continuously growing with 76 public electronic services currently available to citizens.
The activities launched by the Republic of Croatia, driven by the need to respond quickly to the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, are a guarantee of future efforts to ensure transparent, accountable and inclusive responses to similar challenges in the future. The acquired knowledge and lessons learned will be used as an opportunity to further improve transparency, citizen participation, accountability and the application of technology and innovation in the next implementation period of the Open Government Partnership initiative in the Republic of Croatia.
