3 Norway and the Open Government Partnership (OGP)

3.1 Organisation and funding

Norway became part of the OGP cooperation in 2010 as one of the very first countries and has also served on OGP’s Steering Committee. The Ministry of Digitisation and Public Governance (DFD) coordinates the OGP work in Norway. Norway supports OGPs financially by annually authorising an amount equivalent to USD 200,000.

Norway has established a stakeholders’ forum and, on its own initiative, has appointed an OGP Council. The members of the Stakeholders’ Forum consist of a number of civil society organisations together with the ministries. All organisations are free to participate in the work. The OGP Council is appointed by the Ministry (see sections 3.1 and 3.2).

3.2 The action plans

Norway has submitted four action plans along with an extension of the fourth plan (Action Plan 4 B). Due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was not possible to start work on a new action plan, and the fourth was therefore expanded with more initiatives. This was done in agreement with the OGP.

The individual ministries and agencies are responsible for their respective commitments in the action plans.

Norway’s action plans have been assessed by the OGP’s own auditing body, the Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM). The plans have been criticised on several occasions for not being ambitious enough, for containing commitments that would be implemented in any case, and for not involving civil society enough.

However, Norway has also received praise for commitments on gender equality, beneficial ownership and the disclosure of financial data.