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Open Government

Research Note: Is Your Government Open or Closed? October 2011 3 An additional thirty-three countries of the world were scored as being eligible for the OGP, based a 16-point rating system created by information provider Global Integrity to determine the level of commitment to transparency for each nation. This now raises the visibility and differentiation of these governments who are not mere democracies but are explicitly striving to be democratic and open. As depicted in Figure 2, currently 21% of the World‟s nations are deemed to have open and transparent governments, 15% meet the eligibility criteria for membership and a majority of 64% remains classified as being closed with non-transparent governance structures in place. Figure 2 - Global Makeup of Open Governments The criteria being employed for classifying governments as open or closed are comprised of four key metrics and an overall points system where countries pre-qualify if they score at least 75% of the total possible points available to them: OGP Scoring System 1) Budget Transparency  To assure fiscal transparency and mitigate corruption by requiring the publication of essential budget proposals and audit reports. 2) Access to Information  To assure citizen access to public sector information (PSI), specifically countries with constitutional provisions guaranteeing access to information (FOIs-Freedom of Information Acts). 3) Asset Disclosure  Requires the income and asset disclosure by officials in government, specifically countries with a law requiring public disclosures for both politicians and senior public officials. 4) Citizen Engagement  Uses the 2010 Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Democracy Index Civil Liberties score which is a hefty composite score of 16 metrics around level of free media, restrictions on Internet access, religious and political freedoms, right to private property, political expression and others. All the scores above are based on recycled metrics that are already in use by multilateral monitoring agencies around the globe. Closed, 140, 64% Eligible, 33, 15% Open, 46, 21% OGP Status