Representatives of Montenegro's OGP Operational Team participate in 2015 global summit in Mexico City

Mexico City, Mexico (29 October 2015) -- The Open Government Partnership Global Summit, the most important event of the multilateral initiative, which takes place every two years, was held in Mexico City from 27-29 October.

Two members of the Montenegrin Open Government Partnership’s Operational Team, Stefan Vukotić of the Public Relations Service of the Government of Montenegro, and Vuk Maraš of the Network for Affirmation of NGO Sector (MANS), took part in the 2015 OGP summit.

This year’s summit focused on endorsing the Joint Declaration on Open Government for the Implementation od the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, backed up by more than 30 countries, including Montenegro.

The summit, opened by President of Mexico Enrique Peña Nieto, was attended by more than 3,000 representatives of states, civil society and multilateral organisations, including a large number of heads of state and government, ministers, OGP national coordinator, as well as members of national OGP teams. The following topics were discussed at the summit: sustainable development and combating poverty, improving transparency of state and public administration in order to increase prosperity, inclusion of other authorities in the OGP process, open access to data, fiscal transparency, cooperation between administrative bodies and non-governmental sectors, bilateral, regional and multilateral cooperation and exchange of best practices, and regional networking.

Several countries were awarded for undertaking activities within the OGP initiative, including the neighboring Croatia, which "e-Citizens" project has been declared the best project in Europe in the field of "Open Government for the Enhancement of Public Services."

Representatives of Montenegro’s Open Government Partnership’ Operational team Operational Team, Stefan Vukotić and Vuk Maraš, also took part in several working sessions, namely the session on the work of non-governmental organisations and national OGP teams, as well as in informal consultations with partners from other countries and organisations. They also shared Montenegro’s experience and activities, collect examples of best practice and discuss possible future cooperation with international partners, as well as the support for the Montenegrin projects within the second action plan in line with the Open Government Partnership, which is currently in the process of public debate and is expected to be adopted by the end of November.

Furthermore, Montenegro’s model of consultations between the Government and civil society in drafting and monitoring the Open Government Partnership’s action plan has also been presented. Namely, Montenegro is one of few OGP member states which holds regular consultations and its Operation Team is composed of representatives of the Government and civil society, which jointly draft the action plan and monitor its implementation.

More information about the 2016 OGP Summit is available on the official website: http://ogpsummit.org.

Text of the Joint Declaration is available at: http://www.opengovpartnership.org/SDGsJointDeclaration.