Brazil’s Third Action Plan

The actions concerning the OGP are conducted in compliance with a “National Action Plan”. The action plans are built by the countries themselves, based on the areas in which they should develop. Accordingly, in contrast to other international organizations, in the context of the OGP each participating country specifies what its commitments are and traces strategies and activities to make them come true. The action plans are to be implemented in the period of up to two years. Throughout this time, governs need to annually release a self-assessment report on the execution of the commitments taken. Countries also go through an assessment by the Independent Report Mechanism – IRM. This mechanism chiefly works by means of publishing independent assessment reports, which are two: one is called Midterm Report and the other Final Report. They serve the purpose of monitoring the execution of the action plan, and they are produced by an independent international consultant and aim at assessing the implementation of commitments and the evolution on the compliance of Open Government principles, besides presenting technical recommendations.
Commitments are actions held by a country within an Action Plan. Commitments shall be specific, measurable, relevant, answerable and time-bound. Besides that, they must be in accordance with the Open Government principles defined by the OGP. There is no prescribed way to establish commitments. Nonetheless, the core guideline is that they should be set by civil society and government in a joint action, in a way the actors from these two fields are involved not only during the construction process, but also in the execution, monitoring and assessment of what has been agreed. The Third National Action Plan construction process was undertaken according to an unprecedented and innovative methodology which was built by the GE-CIGA and the Civil Society’s WG. Compliant with the methodology, the discussion of challenges and the definition of commitments should happen by holding co-creation workshops, that is, meetings counting on parity participation of experts from government and civil society in preset themes. The methodology envisaged three work phases: i) Phase for Setting Themes; ii) Cocreation Phase; and iii) Phase for Approving the Plan.