Regional : Strengthening Government and Civil Society Cooperation in Open Government Partnership to Improve Public Services

Public sector management / Public administration

ADB's Strategy 2020 identifies good governance and capacity development as one of the five drivers of change, and puts it as mainstream of ADB operations. In the Midterm Review of Strategy 2020, 'ADB will help strengthen governance systems and institutional capacities to support effective, timely, and corruption-free delivery of public services. ADB's Governance Policy (1995) identified transparency, accountability, participation, and predictability as four pillars of sound governance. Presently, all CPSs address governance and capacity issues, in part through the mandatory requirement for CPSs and operations in priority sectors to be informed by governance risk assessments (GRAs).

The Second Governance and Anticorruption Action Plan (GACAPII), approved in July 2006, identified poor governance, weak institutions and systemic corruption as significant risks on the public sector's ability to delivery services. Reducing corruption and developing capable institutions are identified as means to improve development outcomes and building effective states. The key Results areas identified public financial management and preventative measures to combat corruption as important to GACAPII. ADB's approach to capacity development is expressed in the 2007 Medium-Term Framework and Action Plan for capacity development.

The recent adoption of the Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG16) is the international development community's commitment to strengthen governance and institutional capacities. SDG16 aims to 'build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels and SDG17 which aims to enhance the effectiveness of capacity development to developing countries.

Organizational performance of Asia and the Pacific OGP member countries to formulate and implement OGP NAPs improved

Government and civil society collaboration to support citizen participation in service delivery strengthened

Training needs report produced.

Training and cross learning from Asia and the Pacific Open Government Partnership members and aspiring member countries conducted.

Technical and demonstration support provided.

The TA is well on track and expected to be finalized ahead of time by end of February 2020.

Output 1: Knowledge products on open government partnership developed and disseminated

A series of open government-related learning events, blogs and workshop reports have been produced under the output.

The Open Government Regional Workshop on Public Service Delivery was co-organized with the OGP Secretariat and the United Nations Development Program and held from 78 August 2017 in ADB Headquarters Manila. The workshop provided a forum for experience sharing and learning of open government country cases with lessons learnt from nine OGP members.

Related to the regional workshop, a blog on the Open Data Initiative in Indonesia was posted by the Open Government Specialist consultant recruited under the TA and published at: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/stories/co-creation-buzzword-reflections-open-government-public-service-delivery-workshop-manila.

A workshop on 'Strengthening Open Budget Practices in Asia and the Pacific was held in Manila on 79 May 2018 as ADB's contribution to the Global OGP Week.

In February 2018, the government concurrence from Papua New Guinea was received. A High Level OGP Conference on 'Re-engaging in Open Government Partnership in Papua New Guinea Learning and Building on from Experiences Locally and Globally was held on 2627 June 2018 at Laguna Hotel, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea and contributed to the adoption of the National Action Plan. The TA funded the venue and resource persons from India, Mongolia, and the Philippines to share regional experiences with National Action Plan preparation. Follow up discussions were held with the Papua New Guinea team to assess support needs for implementation of the National Action Plan.

An OGP regional meeting was held on 56 November 2018 in Seoul, South Korea. The meeting comprised over 600 governmental reformers and civil society leaders from 40 different countries. It provided a platform to discuss ways to make governments more inclusive, responsive and accountable. The TA funded two resource persons from Indonesia, a resource person from Armenia to present the subproject supported under output 3.2 and a participant from Armenia.

A Regional Workshop on Beneficial Ownership in the Asia and Pacific co-organized with the ADB Institute and the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) Secretariat was held at ADB Headquarters on 19-20 March 2020. The objective of the workshop was to showcase best practices with beneficial ownership disclosure so far, discuss challenges, implementation of data standards, verification procedures and meaningful use of data.

Output 2: Capacity of stakeholders in selected developing member countries to promote and implement the national action plans strengthened

A request from the Government of Armenia (GoA) for support of Armenia's fourth National Action Plan (20182020) was discussed and inputs on community monitoring of infrastructure projects were provided drawing on the experience gained under subproject 3.2. The Government decided not to include community-monitoring in the National Action Plan, because at this point, GoA prefers to concentrate efforts and resources on improving the state supervision system to increase the quality of the public service delivery.

The Government of Indonesia hosted the Asia Pacific Leaders' Forum 2017 on 14 December 2017 in Jakarta, Indonesia to discuss the role of open government in promoting inclusive development. ADB contributed to the discussions on how subnational leaders in the region have promoted transparency, accountability, citizen participation, and innovation in the pursuit of inclusive development. The TA funded one of the speakers in the Subnational Leaders' Roundtable as well as two speakers for breakout sessions as well as staff contributions.

Output 3: Community-based initiative on monitoring government service delivery pilot tested

Subproject 3.1 (Indonesia): The subproject 'Improving Access and Use of Information through Open Government for Better Service Delivery and Development Outcomes in East Java (KINERJA OGP) is being implemented in Lumajang and Pacitan Districts. The subproject aims to support improved service delivery processes and open data procedures in two subnational governments in the districts of Lumajang and Pacitan. The districts were selected because of their involvement in the KINERJA project that ended in September 2017. The subproject is complemented by a $105,000 subcomponent under KSTA 9017: REG: Unlocking Innovation for Development focused on dashboard development for child marriage data. A concept paper was prepared on request of the Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning (BAPPENAS) and the provincial government of East Java. During a mission by the project officer to Jakarta in February 2018 the subproject impact, outcome, outputs and activities were agreed with the government and development partners.

In June 2018, BAPPENAS issued letters to the Province of East Java and to the Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS) to request support to the project. Consultants for the subproject were recruited and mobilized in June 2018 for a contract period until 28 February 2019. On 6 July 2018 the KINERJA OGP program was launched in Surabaya and provincial government officials were familiarized with the KINERJA OGP program and prevalent child marriage and open data issues in the province were discussed.

On 5 and 9 July 2018, two kick-off events were held for government and non-government participants to disseminate the objectives and approaches of the project. From 31 July-2 August 2018, the first dashboard development workshop which discussed key performance indicators to be included in the child marriage dashboards was held in Surabaya. The objectives of the workshop were: (i) to provide project overview including use of dashboards for progress monitoring, decision-making, accountability and awareness raising activities, (ii) to identify targeted dashboard users and main messages, (iii) to identify key performance and actionable indicators across domains (social determinants, health and non-health sector domains) and M&E levels (input to impact) rationalize indicators to a core set based on relevance, data availability and parsimony, (iv) to identify best data sources including for disaggregated data, (v) to develop indicator metadata (rationale, data elements, data source). The consultants for the workshop were financed under TA 9017-REG.

From 30 October to 1 November 2018 the second dashboard workshop for dashboard design and development was held in Malang. The objectives of the workshop were: (i) to guide government counterparts in designing dashboards based on dashboard objectives, indicator framework, and data availability and (ii) to train government counterparts develop dashboards using Tableau software. The outcome of the second Dashboard workshop is greater understanding of the existing data and remaining data needs and greater awareness of the need to harmonize messages on child marriage.

By end of December 2018, dashboards templates were available and a better understanding of the dispersed data sources was gained, but significant data gaps continued to persist. Despite intensive efforts by the team to initiate a BPS survey on teenage marriage, it was eventually decided not to pursue the survey due to issues with the cost-efficiency and timeliness of the BPS proposal. An alternative data gathering method was used to collect the data funded under TA 9017-REG. In the meantime, the emphasis of the subproject was shifted towards the development and publication of a Practical Manual on Child Marriage Elimination.

The first provincial quarterly coordination meeting was conducted on 15 January 2019 involving the two districts. An overview and updates on progress of the subproject was presented. A general discussion took place, involving all participants, to get feedback and ensure they had a good understanding of the support needed.

A workshop was held on 2627 February 2019 aimed to develop the manual on eliminating child marriage. Participants included stakeholders from local government offices from Lumajang and Pacitan; provincial government office representatives; UNICEF; civil society organizations, including religious groups and youth representatives. The content of the Practical Manual was discussed and good practices from each district to enrich the manual with examples of anti-child marriage campaigns from the field were collected.

Two workshops to develop the Practical Manual were held on 2627 February 2019 and 2627 March 2019. Participants included stakeholders from local government offices from both districts, provincial government office representatives, UNICEF, civil society organizations, including religious groups, and youth representatives. A draft Practical Manual in Indonesian language was developed by the consultant team following the first workshop and validated during the second workshop.

A mission to Surabaya was fielded on 28 March 2019 by the project officer to discuss the TA progress and agree on the next steps with East Java provincial government and team. The mission met with Mr. Deidi, Head of Foreign Affairs, Subdivision Cooperation Division, Public Relation and Protocol Bureau and his team. The mission agreed that the subproject will be extended from September 2019 to February 2020 and that emphasis will be placed on the development and roll out of the manual. A minor change of scope to adjust the project accordingly was processed and approved on 31 July 2019 and consultant contracts were extended until end of February 2020.

The Practical Manual was tested over four trials conducted from 1828 June 2019 in Lumajang and Pacitan. The aim of these trials with primary stakeholders and targeted recipients from provincial and district levels was to ensure the manual's usefulness, obtain feedback, polish the contents, and gain the commitment of stakeholders to end child marriage.

The second quarterly coordination meeting was held on 4 July 2019 participated by representatives of the provincial and district levels. The participants discussed the progress, the challenges and the next workplan of the subproject.

A workshop to finalize the draft Practical Manual was held on 78 August 2019 in Surabaya. The workshop participants reviewed and discussed the second draft Practical Manual prior to finalization.

On 2 September 2019, an international open government specialist/localization of SDG was engaged until 28 February 2020. The consultant will guide the implementation of the subproject in coordination with the OGP focal point in BAPPENAS and the Provincial Government of East Java. He will provide leadership to the national consultant team and coordinate with stakeholders and ADB project officer and technical inputs on the localization of SDG 5, target 5.3 on teenage marriage issues in the context of Indonesia's action plans on localizing the SDGs including through interfacing with the SDG Secretariat at national and district level.

In September 2019, the dissemination phase for the Practical Manual was initiated in in Lumajang and Pacitan.

A minor change in TA scope and implementation arrangements to test and roll out the Practical Manual on Child Marriage Elimination at the district level was approved on 31 July 2019.

Subproject 3.2 (Armenia). The subproject 'Strengthening Government and Civil Society Cooperation in Open Government Partnership to Improve Public Services aims to support GoA in reducing potential integrity and safeguards risks under the ADB's Seismic Safety Improvement Program (SSIP). In May 2017, ADB entered into a cooperation agreement between ADB and Integrity Action (IA) to cooperate on the monitoring of 20 schools financed under the SSIP. The agreement was revised effective 1 May 2018 and now comprises monitoring of eight schools by May 2019 with a reduced contract amount. Of the targeted 8 schools to be monitored with functioning Joint Working Groups documenting problems and issues in DevelopmentCheck only 6 schools were achieved because of the delay of the bidding and construction for the remaining schools.

IA conducted an initial scoping mission to Armenia from 1521 July 2017 to clarify roles and responsibilities with all stakeholders involved and ascertain the locations of schools. https://www.fredrikgaltung.com/single-post/2017/08/24/Armenia-an-Open-Beneficiary-Partnership-with-the-Asian-Development-Bank.

From 2729 September 2017, IA held a three-day workshop on community integrity building and the DevelopmentCheck methodology for prospective Armenian non-government organizations interested in entering into partnership with IA to implement the community integrity building approach and monitor the reconstruction of selected schools. The training also informed IA's partnership selection. The decision was reached to appoint the Armavir Development Center in cooperation with the Regional Research Institute for Social-Economic Policy.

At a development partner workshop held on the 28 September 2017 hosted by the Armenia Resident Mission of ADB, ADB launched the TA and shared details on the design and scope of the project as well as the partnership with IA and the GoA.

In December 2017, IA informed ADB that it would not be possible to conduct the monitoring of 20 schools as agreed in the cooperation agreement because of delays in school selection under the ADB SSIP. The agreement was revised effective 1 May 2018 to comprise the monitoring of eight schools by May 2019 with a reduced contract amount.

IA conducted a community integrity building Training of Trainers on 2325 January 2018. The training was meant to equip NGOs with skills to help monitor reconstruction of schools. Also, the new DevelopmentCheck App and website was translated to Armenian (https://developmentcheck.org/) and launched during the training sessions.

The semi-annual report covering JanuaryJuly 2018 reported that a Joint Working Group for six schools composed of different stakeholders from each school were established and held monthly meetings. A steering committee was successfully established in March 2018 to facilitate commitments among ADB, the Armavir Development Center, the Armenia Territorial and Development Fund and IA. An initial meeting was held in April 2018. By end of December, community monitors for six schools were identified and 79 monitors (71% female) were recruited and trained. Training materials were translated in Armenian. Bi-monthly visits were conducted to six schools under construction and reports submitted on DevelopmentCheck.

Between August 2018 and May 2019, the monitoring of six schools continued with strong buy in from the monitoring teams. The six Joint Working Groups met every three months. Verified data were uploaded to DevelopmentCheck and results communicated through media and community feedback meetings. The approach is being replicated by other development partners.

A national consultant with expertise on public sector management and governance was recruited during June 2018May 2019 and supported the in-country subproject oversight and the preparation of the Governance Risk Assessment for Armenia, in accordance with the requirements, processes, and standard reporting formats contained in the staff guidance for implementing ADB's Governance and Anticorruption Action Plan II. The Governance Risk Assessment fed into the preparation of ADB's country partnership strategy for Armenia. The Governance Risk Assessment has been finalized and was approved by Government for publication.

A mission to Yerevan, Armenia was fielded by the project officer on 30 April3 May 2019 to attend the final project conference with the Ministry of Territorial Development and Administration, Armavir Development Centre and six school's community monitoring group linked to SSIP and discussed progress of the TA subproject. The Armavir Development Center provided an excellent opportunity to review the progress of the subproject, drawing on presentations of the six community groups and a project video in Armenian and English language. The Ministry indicated that there is no interest in continuing the community monitoring of the remaining schools financed under the SSIP as they felt that ensuring seismic safe school construction was the Ministry's responsibility.

The Europe and Central Asia Regional Governance Conference Building Effective, Accountable, and Inclusive Institutions was held in Ankara, Turkey on 1112 June 2019 supported under the TA. The conference discussed on how to further facilitate governance reforms in the region to improve the lives of citizens and build their trust in government. The conference provided an opportunity to strengthen partnerships, showcase global knowledge and innovation, and promote peer learning by sharing emerging good practices and results achieved in the Europe and Central Asia region. A Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development official attended the governance conference to share the Armenia experience on the benefits of citizen engagement and other related governance issues.

The G20 Compendium of Good Practices for Promoting Integrity and Transparency in Infrastructure Development was discussed at the Second Meeting of G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group held in Mexico City, Mexico last 1416 May 2019. The Compendium includes the cooperation with community monitoring of a seismic safety school reconstruction program in Armenia as an example for government-citizen cooperation. The final version of the Compendium includes a reference to the subproject.

The Integrity Action Cooperation Agreement was completed in May 2019 and the Final Report and Lessons Learned Analysis was approved by ADB in September 2019.

NEXT STEPS:

"Indonesia subproject: The dissemination of the Practical Manual will continue across the Province of East Java. On February 2020, a wrap up workshop will be conducted in Surabaya. The final report will be submitted to ADB by end of February.

"Armenia subproject: The subproject is completed. Dissemination measures will continue until end of February 2020, as needed.