OKFestival

How can we ensure open government initiatives live up to their promise? 

The movement for more open, accountable governments is gaining momentum the world over. But too often, open government initiatives are deployed without careful designs that enable them to achieve their intended objectives. 

Drawing on Reboot’s extensive on-the-ground experience working on open government in sensitive or typically ‘closed’ contexts, this session will explore how to realize the principles of open government in practice. How to enable participation from hard-to-reach citizens? How to ensure governments actually respond to citizen input? How to move beyond trial to sustained adoption and engagement? How to look beyond the numbers to evaluate effectiveness and impact? 

With examples from building the world’s first national mobile voter registration system in Libya to implementing Africa’s first sub-national open data program in Nigeria to supporting open data innovation programs in Mexico, this session will explore these questions through discussion and exercises that allow participants to share and build upon their own experiences.