Open Government Partnership (OGP) was founded on the idea that public policy reform is better when government officials engage with civil society actors. Because of this, OGP cannot succeed without the ability of people to freely organize, participate, and communicate about policy. This is referred to as “civic space”.

Yet, based on an analysis of documented events over the last five years, freedom of association, assembly, and expression are under threat in many OGP countries. The most common problems are:

• attacks on journalists and human rights defenders,

• failure to respect and protect public assemblies, and

• barriers to independent and efficient operation of formal civil society organizations

Is OGP focusing on the right problems and using the right tools? OGP action plans currently do not address the most pressing civic space problems in OGP countries. There is a significant number of commitments addressing formal operation of civil society organizations. The gap between the scale of problems and the number of commitments is widest in freedom of assembly (where there are two commitments) and the defense of human rights defenders and journalists.

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