About

THE 2014 OPEN GOVERNMENT AWARDS



In October of 2013, the Open Government Partnership (OGP) announced the launch of a new program, The Open Government Awards (Awards), at the London Summit. Each year, the Awards will celebrate a new theme, and in this inaugural year the theme is Citizen Engagement. OGP is asking each participating country to nominate one initiative that expands and sustains Citizen Engagement to improve government policies and services. As you consider which initiatives to nominate, please focus on the following:


The OGP defines citizen engagement as

…mechanism(s) by which citizens participate in and have influence on the design and implementation of public policy and services, with the ultimate goal of making government more open, responsive, and accountable to their needs.


The theme reflects a principle that is at the core of the OGP model. Therefore, we are challenging each participating country to showcase how their government is OPEN to citizen input and oversight. Similarly, because OGP is a multi-stakeholder partnership that includes both governments and civil society organizations, participating countries are required to consult with their partners in nominating the best initiative, and are strongly encouraged to put in a joint application with them for the Awards.

In the spirit of open, fair, and transparent programming, OGP is providing you with the opportunity to consider the level of effort required to participate in the Awards by offering a detailed explanation of:

THE APPLICATION
THE SCORING PROCESS
THE JUDGES

By providing you with access to all of these requirements and the procedures by which we will score and comment upon each application, you may better consider which initiatives to nominate and how your initiative aligns with OGP’s standards of performance.

Already, each OGP participating country has received detailed BRIEFING MATERIALS, to guide them through nominating and selecting their initiatives. Once that decision has been made, each OGP participating country will provide a unique passcode to the team responsible for putting in an application, so that they may REGISTER on this website and begin composing their application. Another benefit of registration is that those teams will have opportunities to communicate with each other, join discussion forums, and seek any clarification from our administrators.

Over the next three months, teams will submit their applications, and judges will be responsible for scoring them. To offer a more detailed description of each phase of the submission and review process, please consider the following timeline:

Between April 15th and May 30th, teams must REGISTER on this website using the unique passcode provided to them by their OGP participating country. After the registration deadline, those teams are provided an additional month to complete their application. However, we strongly recommend that each team should begin considering the requirements of the APPLICATION as soon as possible. While the contents of the application may only include as few as 5-10 pages, it also requires letters from local civil society organizations or private partners, to validate claims made by those teams. The total amount of time to complete the application should take approximately 1-2 months, and we recommend starting the application process before the registration deadline.

Once the registration deadline has closed, OGP may choose to announce new judges. We will expand the number of judges, to ensure that every applicant receives no less than five reviews per submission. Those scores will be statistically normalized, to ensure a LEVEL PLAYING FIELD for every applicant. By offering this transparent process, we seek to provide fair consideration and feedback to each team. Teams will receive both scores and comments from each of their judges, and we are offering detailed descriptions of our JUDGES.

Once the application deadline has passed on June 27th, our administrative team will review each submission, to ensure that it is complete and meets all of the application requirements before distributing those complete applications to our judges. They will score and comment upon each assigned application using the same SCORING PROCESS. You are welcome to learn more about that process and the rubric that they will use to asses specific traits of your application.

After those scores and comments have been submitted to OGP, a rank order of performance will be reviewed by OGP, so that specific honors can be attributed to a range of initiatives. While the scores from the judges will be used to determine the top performers, OGP may also consider where to make distinctions between categories of winners (e.g., tiers of recognition) and may also decide to honor certain candidates who score exceptionally well against particular criteria. Teams will be invited to attend a high-level event to honor the top performing initiatives and their partners.

Coordination of the event will require planning with each team, and the target date for the event is during the third week of September in New York City (on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly meetings).

Near the end of July, those teams which will be recognized by OGP will be contacted, so that they may begin planning to participate in an Awards event in September. The event will take place in New York, NY (USA). Also, during that planning period, we will provide each team with their scores and individual feedback from each assigned judge, so that they may continue to share their successes and/or build upon key tactics or adopt similar innovative programs from within our community of applicants.

If you have any specific questions, regarding this timeline or the application requirements, please contact us at munyema.hasan@opengovpartnership.org.