During its co-presidency of the Open Government Partnership (Sept. 2016 - Sept. 2017) and under its National Action Plan 2018-2020, France pledged to support the transparency of public action at international level by assisting Francophone countries with the implementation of their National Action Plans (NAP). The French Government consequently decided to set up the Open Government Support Programme in Francophone Africa (PAGOF), through financing from Agence Française de Développement (AFD). At the time, Senegal was only involved via the regional component.
In the meantime, Senegal joined the OGP initiative in July 2018 and was thereby able to benefit from initial support for the development of its NAP. While this technical assistance is not legally part of PAGOF, it has very close ties with this project. Indeed, under PAGOF, Expertise France and CFI have assisted Tunisia and Côte d’Ivoire with the process to jointly build their new NAP. These experiences and the expertise developed have served to assist Senegal with its process to develop the NAP.
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The project to support the development of Senegal’s National Action Plan aimed to assist the Senegalese authorities with the first open government initiatives, following the country’s membership of the OGP in July 2018.
The project’s main objectives were to:
• Support and assist Senegal with the development of its National Action Plan, respecting the principles and criteria of the OGP in its procedures to develop the plan (co-construction with civil society, commitment criteria, etc.)
• Raise the awareness and build the capacities of actors in open government in Senegal (administration and CSOs) in terms of understanding and managing the concepts of open government and the OGP
• Promote the regional experience and expertise in open government and the OGP, in particular of the three partner countries of PAGOF (Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Tunisia) and of France.
To this end, the project is based on three main focus areas:
Area 1: Support capacity building for the members of the Multi-stakeholder Forum/Technical Committee
Area 2: Support the process for the development of the NAP (National Action Plan)
Area 3: Support communication and awareness-raising on the NAP
The project has implemented the following activities:
• Creation of upgrade training courses on project management and procedures, on the key principles of open government and how to develop and implement a NAP
• Organisation of experience-sharing workshops with representatives of the Tunisian Multi-stakeholder Forum and Moroccan representatives
• Support for public and citizen consultations, by training facilitators in public consultations, deploying them in the regions and setting up studies on the governance profile of the regions and the citizen participation of women and young people
• Contribution to the evaluation of the proposals from the public consultations and the selection/drafting of the commitments of the NAP, through technical assistance for the evaluation of the proposals and the formalisation of the commitments selected, and the organisation of a collaborative workshop and workshops to finalise and validate the NAP.
Starting in the second half of 2022, Senegal will formally join the Open Government Support Programme in Francophone Africa (PAGOF 2).
Open government in Senegal will thereby be able to further strengthen its structure, ecosystem and tools, and fully benefit from the peer-to-peer exchanges in the regional programme. The assistance project will ultimately have supported Senegal during the first stages and activities of the OGP. It will be possible to strengthen these activities as a result of its effective integration as a member of the regional PAGOF 2 programme.
