The National Development Council, Taiwan, which has led Taiwan’s open government programme since 2021, engaged Trust Democracy member, Keitha Booth, an experienced reviewer of the national action plans of Open Government Partnership (OGP) member countries, to review the implementation of Taiwan’s first open government national action plan 2021-2024 and to assess its early results, in line with the OGP’s Independent Review Mechanism’s methodology and process. Together with Associate Professor Mei Jen Hung, of National Taiwan University, Keitha has prepared the Independent Results Report, which has been released for public comment.
The draft Independent Results Report is available as a downloadable PDF. The Executive Summary is available as a webpage.
Members of the Taiwanese public are invited to email evidence-based comments on the draft Independent Results Report to opengovern@proton.me by 27 December 2024. These comments will be published with the final version of the Independent Results Report in early January 2025.
Taiwan’s action plan has 19 commitments, compared with eight in New Zealand’s current open government action plan.
Keitha Booth and Mei Jen Hung report that five commitments already have significant early results. Taiwan’s open data and procurement integrity platforms and its youth deliberative democracy program have established strong infrastructure and networks, and legal and operational structures now protect long-term digital privacy and personal data.
There is real-time reporting on air quality, disaster prevention, and rescue and early warning earthquake alerts. Young Taiwanese people are working with the government to co-create government policy. The civics education programme is well-embedded in the education curriculum and has a high international rating. Members of the public report that the government procurement integrity platforms have increased public understanding of Taiwan’s anti-corruption regulations, reduced external and internal political influence in major government projects and allowed significant civil society group involvement in these projects.
The government’s work forming trade unions, encouraging new immigrant participation, and promoting financial transparency of religious groups has no notable early results to date, due to insufficient support by the Legislative Yuan, indicators of public resistance, or a lack of published evidence of early results.
The leadership by the Agency against Corruption and the Ministries of Digital Affairs, Education, Environment and Justice is seen as a model for other countries. Further work and leadership at political and government levels are needed to embed an open government culture across the civil service and all sectors, with the government and civil society routinely collaborating to deliver permanent open government reform and results.
Note: The image of the Let’s Talk deliberative youth event used in the header of this post was provided with permission by the Youth Development Administration, Ministry of Education, R.O.C. (Taiwan).
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