Mo Ibrahim participated in the 2016 Open Government Partnership (OGP) Africa Regional Meeting held in Cape Town, South Africa from May 4-6. The meeting was preceded by a Civil Society Day and OGP Points of Contact Conference, where Mo and the Committee engaged civil society through a town hall session on making OGP work for Africa.
Mo also took part in the Ministerial Steering Committee meeting and joined panels at the ONE as well Open Contracting Partnership events.
Over the two days key points highlighted included:
- concern over the shrinking space for African civil society
- the amount of money lost from Africa in illicit flows being more than double the amount of aid received
- only 9 out of 54 African countries are in the OGP
- that there are no trade secrets in public contracts.
As a build up to the meeting, the South African government also made a commitment to launching a publicly accessible Beneficial Ownership transparency, making it the first African country to have a public registry of beneficial ownership information.
The meeting was attended by more than 600 reformers from across the continent – governments and civil society – to discuss how open government, and a more transparent and accountable approach to governance, can support sustainable development in Africa.
About the Open Government Partnership
The Open Government Partnership is an initiative between governments and civil society organisations that seeks to make governments more open, accountable and responsive to citizens. In less than five years, 69 governments have joined.
