Daily Times

While many of us are amused to see pictures of cold weather and heavy snowfall in various parts of the country, people like me anxiously wait for the news feeds to read ‘emergency declared, Army called in to assist with relief activities’. It is at that moment I realise that despite all the efforts and mumbo-jumbo Pakistan desperately needs to re-vamp or strengthen its institutions and public departments so that we canlive our lives without disruption of ‘basic necessities’.

Though Islamabad remains buzzing with macro-level policy talks and high-level meetings aimed at easing lives of millions, in reality, it seems that policiesremain only limited to offices and meeting rooms. In return, people like me are left with nothing else but to search for anything positive and look for ‘silver lining’ in any possible news, policy or statement. In today’s day and age, there have to be platforms for avenues to allow the government to connect to citizens. Despite being highly sceptical, our government’s recent signing of the Open Government Partnership comes as a positive step in making governments responsible to its citizens. It’s a voluntary, multilateral platform that allows a government to identify its problems, put it on paper as ‘National Action Plan (NAP)’ and then commit to addressing those challenges. The silver lining in all of the OGP is that the government has to sit alongside with civil society organisations, the business community, and other stakeholders and include them in formulating the problems. The NAP should reflect issues revolving around ‘civic participation, access to information, public accountability, and technology and innovation for openness and accountability’.

To me, it seems an excellent opportunity to sit at par with the government and chalk out a plan that directly benefits the people. Furthermore, the OGP process allows a two-year window for the country to address the problems identified through NAP. After two years, an independent review mechanism is activated that reviews the country’s progress against each problem identified in NAP. The process continues unless all four values of OGP are met in the country.

Some 74 countries are members of OGP. Without any discrimination of developed or underdeveloped, any state can commit to the OGP. For instance, Canada, United Kingdom and some European countries are also its members and are trying to achieve these four principals in their countries as well.

However, under OGP Pakistan will be a tough nut to crack. Panama leaks and accountability battle is all across our news. Openness and access to information laws already present a bleak picture and varies province to province, civic participation is hardly seen apart from rallies and inauguration ceremonies, and technological innovation is only seen while using the internet on phones. So how OGP will affect us, how will it be beneficial for a citizen waiting for food rations and blankets in Balochistan trying to stay away from cold in the snowfall?

Well for starters, Pakistani civil society will have to buckle up and present a coherent and organisedstandpoint to the government. OGP offers us with a chance to not only be critical of our government for its haphazardness and its faults but also gives us an opportunity to reorganise our civil society, and formulate a NAP and later, assist the government in achieving the commitments. I am sure that various challenges and issuesare lurking above and need our attention under the Open Government Partnership. However, is it ok if I call it a test for our civil society to see how it reacts to the OGP? Do we act in the same manner as always and suggest that it’s nothing but a smoke screen or do we try to gain as much as we can from it? While drafting NAP, it would be feasible for civil society to devise commitments that directly address the departments and institutions functioning at the very local level. For instance, rather than making extraordinary commitments, can we begin by suggesting that by 2019, all District Health Quarter and Basic Health Units information will be digitised or teachers at all public schools to have a digitised attendance mechanism? Such commitments have the potential to impact the lives of citizens directly. This will result in providing solutions and interventions that directly affect the people in their daily lives. In return, once the review mechanism starts its review, Pakistan can show some pragmatic and objective changes rather than policy changes that will require further three to four years to filter down to the people living in remote areas. Once the ball gets rolling, and a working relationship is achieved between the government and civil society, it can then proceed on to macro-level/policy changes in the following years. The goal of civil society and government in OGP should be to start from grass roots and slowly make its way to the top levels.

The beauty of OGP is its fluidity. It can reflect any challenge that a country seems fit. Many countries have committed to altering their legislations and macro-level policies, while many have focused on revamping certain ministry or department. Some have managed to commit to introducing new legislation as well as work on existing ones. So, this presents Pakistan with a lot of space to identify problems that we are able to address in two years’ time and then proceed to others. We have already seen ourselves getting excited and later sitting in despair with similar exercises on millennium development goals and other such commitments. Could we say that now is the time to learn from our experiences and try not to repeat the things which we did in the past? Could we as civil society proactively pursue OGP despite its voluntary signing and political gimmicks? Do we have the capacity and ability to turn a political manoeuvre in favour and interest of our people and our country? Perhaps, all the previous governments made huge mistakes, and finally,everyone forgives Ishaq Darfor signing OGP. Perhaps, it is a political move to improve our image or perhaps it’s a divine miracle for our civil society to transform Pakistan? We may know not, and how we may know? By simply putting in our share and see how it goes.

The writer works as Governance and Advocacy Advisor at Individualland Pakistan and tweets @khanhamzakhan00