News

Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Audronius Ažubalis attended the launching of the international initiative The Open Government Partnership (OGP) on 20 September in New York and thanked the U.S. President Barack Obama for his country’s support for projects enhancing Lithuania’s energy independence.

The launch of the Open Government Partnership initiative was organized by the U.S. President Barack Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

The Open Government Partnership is a new international initiative aimed at securing effective work of governments, based on transparency and in partnership with civil society, aimed to increase civic participation, fight against corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. 

The implementation of the initiative is overseen by a steering committee that includes representatives from 8 governments - the United States, Brazil, Great Britain, Norway, Mexico, South Africa, Indonesia and the Philippines – and 9 representatives from non-governmental organizations.

The initiative is open to participation from all countries that meet the minimum eligibility criteria: fiscal transparency, access to information, public disclosure of income and assets for elected and senior public officials, openness to citizen participation and engagement in policymaking and governance.

Lithuania was invited to join this initiative and to share its experience and best practices with the countries that consider the issues of governance and administrative capacity-building to be of major importance.

It is expected that the initiative would become an attractive forum for these countries, facilitating to share their latest experience in strengthening democracy, human rights and fight against corruption. The initiative will also create new opportunities for Lithuania and its like-minded partners to implement joint projects aimed at the strengthening of democratic institutions and administrative capacity-building in priority regions for Lithuania.