Today, in the Palace of Serbia, began the marking the Week of Open Government Partnership in 2022 by opening of the meeting of the Working Group for the development of the fourth Action Plan for the period 2020-2022 and the implementation of participation of the Republic of Serbia in the initiative Open Government Partnership.
The meeting was opened by the Chairman of the Working Group, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government, Stevan Gligorin, who pointed out numerous positive aspects of its work which have made it a platform for dialogue and exchange of ideas, with the aim of making public administration more open and in line with the core values of the Open Government Partnership.
“In the past two years, we have faced numerous challenges, while the fact that this is the first time that this Working Group is gathering in person in two years speaks volumes about how demanding and complex this period was. I think that all of us together, and in such circumstances, have done our best to make some progress towards the openness of our public administration, but that there is still significant room for improving our participation in the Open Government Partnership, especially in terms of cooperation with civil society, greater participation and engagement of certain administrative bodies, and stronger support for processes and activities at the level of decision makers”, Gligorin has stressed.
He has stated that, in accordance with the Partnership calendar, the implementation of the current Action Plan ends in August of this year, but that the proposal is to postpone the drafting of the new Action Plan for next year, when the optimal conditions are met.
“I believe that from autumn and going forward we shall together, through an open and constructive dialogue, succeed in preparing a new Action Plan with more ambitious activities and “major steps” towards improving the core values of the Open Government Partnership, and a significant contribution to this will be made by the fact that Partnership issues are included under the competences of the Public Administration Reform Council, as a body at the highest ministerial level, in order to provide greater political support to these processes.,” the State Secretary of MDULS has concluded.
He has used this opportunity to thank the EU Delegation to Serbia, which through the project “Support to Visibility and Communication of Public Administration Reform”, supports the holding of the Week of Open Government Partnership, and invited all stakeholders to take part in upcoming events marking Serbia’s Week of Open Government Partnership.
This week, the Week of Open Government Partnership in the Republic of Serbia is marked both live and online from 16-20 May, and presents an opportunity for representatives of the civil sector, state bodies, and independent institutions and bodies, but also for representatives of local governments, to exchange their views and present results of their work in the previous two years. Also, this is an opportunity to discuss partnership as the key to better solutions and cooperation as a way to develop local communities, but also open data and their importance. The final days of marking the Week of Open Government Partnership shall be dedicated to trainings for the use of the eConsultation Portal, intended for citizens and Civil Society Organizations, which will be held at the SKIP Centre in Belgrade and online.