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{
    "id": 697896,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/697896/?format=api",
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    "content": "issues across that particular government. It is shared across the board so that everybody from different countries can tell to what extent the government is becoming open. The nexus of it is to ensure that governments become open and encourage sharing of data and information within a public forum and a public space. Such an arrangement has a direct connection with development and public participation so that people can actually come to the fore, look at these records and see what is going wrong and improve over time. This OGP has actually increased from 8 governments that started and now we are at 66 governments. Kenya is one of them. It was on the basis of that then this particular delegation went for this particular summit. As much as Kenya joined in this initiative like other countries, there is a ranking about how open those government systems are. That ranking has not been put into this Report, but for most of the countries and for most of the participants and delegations that were there, there was a need that was overall expressed that at the end of the day we need to ensure we move more to ensuring that public space is taken care of and that it is opened up. It is seen as a way of a government being responsive to the issues that are happening. The open government platform is across all sorts of data. For example, it could be across data dealing with finances, natural resource, exports and imports within a country. It is a data dealing with almost everything. Issues of data confidentiality and abuse were also discussed during this summit. It was also agreed in that summit that it was important to ensure that the information is contained and used in a responsible way. The people who have the codes and information to access that information are able to access that information and direction is given about how exactly to use that data. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, the whole underpinning principle and reason for this is to ensure that more transparent and accountable systems of government are put into place so that there is no sense of anything being hidden hence the name OGP. So, one government is open, another one is open and these partnerships are put together so that, at the end of the day, people are accountable to what is going on clearly. The member states also are meant to make specific commitments. These commitments are then taken as part of the pact that they have signed themselves to ensure that these systems remain open and accountable. For that accountability to take place, various stakeholders come on to the fore. These include civil societies, investors, students, universities and researchers as part of an open system where all of them can host this specific data. Mr. Temporary Speaker, Sir, for this particular summit, there was categorization into two main tracks in terms of the data that should be utilised. The first one is on legislative openness so that if there is any legislation that is coming or agenda or any aspect, every disclaimer is made openly and that these laws are opened and left for everybody to see. This also includes a concerted and streamlined way of ensuring that civil society engagement comes on the fore by not only waiting for a specific civil society group to approach such governments, but for them to actually look for those specific groups. It will be seen that the more open you are the more there is public participation. The more democracy there is, the fewer questions that are asked overtime; that helped this to happen. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}