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Working Session Summaries

EAP Working Sessions

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) Steering Committee has provided governments with greater flexibility in the development and implementation of OGP National Action Plans considering the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. New Zealand has decided to publish the next OGP Plan (NAP4) in mid-2021.

The EAP and SSC are holding a series of working sessions on the development of NAP4 and how the EAP will support it.

The sessions we have undertaken are summarised below:

Wednesday 22 April

This session was used to share high level thinking about how we would use the opportunity to have a longer and (because of the potential impacts of Covid-19 response) different engagement.

We decided that we would use the time to:

  • explore the strategic context and direction
  • refine the engagement process – what, how and over what timeframes
  • induct the new members of the EAP and discuss and agree the role of EAP in getting the best possible Plan for NZ.

We would do this through a series of working sessions.

Wednesday 29 April

Wide ranging discussion covering:

  • the contribution of the EAP
  • objectives, possible processes and mechanisms relevant to the development of NAP4 (including high level phasing)
  • EAP induction needs.

Feedback from Commonwealth Youth Event.

Wednesday 6 May

This session covered:

  • The OGP cycle and in particular activities relevant to the implementation of NAP3 and the development of NAP4 and the opportunity to respond to improvement suggestions from the NAP3 process
  • The process envisaged for the development of NAP4 was considered, in particular the desire to build on NAP3 themes and have a more collaborative approach to the development of potential commitments
  • The proposal to hold topic related Webinars
  • How to:
    • Provide participants with a better understanding of the context for the development of the Plan and in particular the previous engagement
    • Get people thinking about principles and criteria (rather than focussed on their idea)
    • Get participants thinking about who wasn’t in the conversation, why not and what their concerns might be
    • Identify participants lived concerns and help them to find common ground
    • Respond to needs that fell between agency remits
    • Engage and leverage local government processes and relationships

Wednesday 13 May

This session focussed on:

  • engagement objectives
  • stakeholder mapping
  • capacity to engage

We agreed to be pragmatic about where to focus most effort during the NAP4 engagement to ensure it is manageable and meaningful. Suggested approaches are:

  • Targeted engagement: Youth, Local Government, Open Government commentators/academics/NGOs
  • Wider engagement: use proposed digital tool (Delib Dialogue) to reach wider NZ public and utilise social media and email to direct people that way
  • Webinars: a series of 4-5 panel discussions

Three small teams with one person each from the EAP and SSC were established to work up some thoughts on:

  • youth engagement opportunities.
  • developing webinars
  • outreach to Local Government

These ideas will then input into the development of a plan for consideration and approval.

Suggested the development of appropriate collateral to bring people/groups/audiences up to speed on the current conversations as they engage so we are continually building on what is being heard.

Wednesday 20 May

Interactive induction session covering OGP international, the OGP cycle, NAP3 and administrative matters.