The extent and breadth of the commitments included in the OGP action plans were reflective of who was at the table. Third, cultural realities have a significant impact on OGP processes, albeit in a covert way. To do this, the OGP could benefit from lessons learned from existing multi-stakeholder collaboration platforms. Guidance could therefore be developed to support women’s participation, including the use of gender indicators to evaluate the quality of open government implementation. Second, the nature of the OGP process does not necessarily support inclusion. Building collaboration between government and civil society organisations (CSOs) not only at the national level, but more importantly at the local level, could improve visibility of OGP.

The barriers to greater women’s participation are multifaceted.įirst, low awareness of the OGP process among women organisations and government agencies dealing with women’s issues and concerns contributes to their lack of participation in the OGP national steering committee. This research project found that participation of women in the OGP process in selected countries was largely coincidental - leading to less influence on the OGP action plans and limiting the extent to which women’s issues and concerns were included in the process.

To provide necessary evidence of the barriers to participation, the opportunities, and the viable ways to better engage women towards a more Feminist Open Government.

To learn how women are participating in the OGP process, including the extent to which women’s issues are represented in the OGP national action plan (NAP).

The main objective of the research was twofold: This research explores the role of women in open government in Asia and Francophone West Africa and seeks to assess how country governments and OGP processes have ensured both the representation of women and the inclusion of women’s issues and concerns.

Follow Glenn on Twitter at inclusion of women in Open Government Partnership (OGP) processes is oftentimes incidental, if not accidental, because of a lack of intention. This post was written by Glenn Maail, Research Manager, Open Data Lab Jakarta, and was originally published on.

Incidental happenstance read online