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BELIZE OPEN GOVERNMENT ACTION PLAN DEVELOPMENT IN TIMES OF COVID-19

Description

In advancing open government in Belize through a multi-stakeholder co-creation approach, The Trust for the Americas and the Department for Effective Public Management (DEPM) of the Organization of the American States (OAS), during 2020 and 2021, have supported and will continue to support the process for developing Belize’s first open government action plan. The Action Plan is an instrument to orient the actions of stakeholders in Belize, to accomplish certain open government commitments that are identified and agreed by government and non-government in different topics and/or sectors. Given the diverse challenges posed by COVID-19 in Belize, the exercise of developing Belize’s open government action plan seeks to contribute to defining priority areas in which open government could add more value or have a greater impact on COVID-19 related emergency response and/or recovery.

The co-creation process of an action plan entails a sustained participatory approach, open to anyone wishing to participate, to identify areas of opportunity to utilize open government in pursuing among others, new policies, improved government services, innovative transparency efforts, or alike. At the end of the action plan co-creation process and public consultations, agreed areas of opportunities to address COVID-19 response, and recovery through open government become what are known as open government commitments within action plans.

The action plan development process is divided into 3 phases: 1. Launching and Drafting; 2. Public Consultation; and 3. Editing the final Plan.

Read Belize Open Government Action Plan here

Final list of Commitments

1. Establishing Open Government Education in Belize.

2. Open Data Strategy for Decision Making in Belize.

3. Open Government in Health Services.

4. Improving Transparency with Open Government: Strengthening Civil Society Participation in Compliance with Anti-Corruption Conventions.

5. Digitalization of Citizen Procedures to Prevent Corruption and Improve Government’s Accountability.

6. Ensuring the Effectiveness and Efficiency of the GOB in its Climate Action/Paris Climate Agreement Obligations, with a View Toward Increasing Food Security.

7. Integrated Forest Management Database Development.

This first phase is intended to initiate a public discussion for priority areas in which the plan of action could focus on.

This phase is aimed at having the general public to review and comment directly the drafted commitments.

Once the public consultation phase is over, the inputs resulted from the revision and comments will be taken into consideration during an editing phase.