Data privacy information

On June 30, the Federal Government passed the Third National Action Plan (NAP) 2021-2023 in the framework of Germany’s participation in the Open Government Partnership (OGP).

The OGP is an organization comprised of 78 countries that have committed themselves to more transparency and participation, fighting corruption and harnessing new technologies to tackle societal challenges. Peer exchange and the regular co-creation of national action plans together with civil society form the core of this partnership. Germany joined the OGP in December 2016 and joins the international effort of promoting open government. Since October 2019, Germany is also a member of the steering committe of the OGP.

This action plan contains 11 committments by the Federal Government or its agencies. These include measures to improve the access to Federal legal information as well as open data from the areas of integrity management and public procurement.

Some of these committments are aligned with goals and principles discussed among the G7 governments and constitute building blocks for a resilient exit from the current pandemic says Helge Braun, Federal Minister for Special Tasks and head of the Federal Chancellery, who is in charge of OGP.

Other components of this NAP are the establishment of a collaborative governmental development portal for free software, public participation to reach the UNESCO goals in education for sustainable development, as well as the institutionalization of multi stakeholder processes in environmental policy regarding water residues and the establishement of a national monitoring center for biodiversity.

Some committments are being implemented jointly with state governments. Three specific contributions by state governments (Hamburg and North-Rhine Westfalia) complete this NAP.

Germany shows that despite, and because of, the Covid19-pandemic as well as the end of the legislative period, what diversity of projects make up Open Government.

The pandemic highlights the importance for governments to include external expertise during challenging times, and to explain the basis of our decision making. We also need new forms of collaboration, within and outside of the public administration, as we have for example implemented in our open social innovation platform UpdateGermany. Transparency, participation and collaboration- that’s open government. adds Minister Braun.

Important note: The June 30 cabinet decision does not cover the state government committments. As such, a preview was published then wich has since been replaced by the complete version of the action plan in its English translation, including the state level committments and as an accessiblity-compliant PDF. It is available for download below.

An executive summary is also available in English, Spanish and French.