On November 3, 2023, the Government approved the Open Government priority areas and commitments and the Action Plan for 2023-2025. These promote an enabling civil society environment and echo some of the recommendations around the right to participation in decision-making formulated in the CSO Meter reports. Specifically, the plan focuses on 5 areas:
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Access to information of public interest. This priority addresses the preparation for the implementation of the recently adopted Law 148/2023 regarding access to information of public interest. The actions focus on the capacity-building of civil servants from central and local public administration, aimed to ensure access to information of public interest.
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Open government institutions. This priority focuses on the improvement of mechanisms for ensuring transparency, participation and consultation in the decision-making process. The first commitment focuses on enhancing the functionality, performance and use of the online public consultation platform particip.gov.md, and on the functionality of the permanent consultative platforms created in 2023. The second commitment focuses on the transparency of the reporting and evaluation mechanism, regarding the implementation of the United Nations Convention against Corruption. The third commitment focuses on the rehabilitation and social reintegration of convicts, through the digital transformation of correctional systems for better governance of detention institutions and respect for human rights.
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Open budgets. The third priority addresses the increasing of capacities to ensure budget transparency. The actions focus on a training program for CSOs regarding budget monitoring independent monitoring of budget expenditures. Additionally, actions provide for national and international information campaigns on the progress in carrying out the reforms on the Europeanisation agenda.
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Public procurement. This priority emphasises citizens' open access to complete and current data on goods, services and works procured through the public procurement system. The actions focus on the training of public authorities.
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Development of capacities and competences. The last priority is cross-integrated into commitments in other areas.
The Action Plan was developed by the State Chancellery, starting from May 2023. The State Chancellery collected proposals from civil society, which it later transposed into the new plan that was publicly consulted in September 2023.
Previously, in May 2023, the State Chancellery relaunched the activity of the Coordinating Committee for Open Government. The Committee was originally created in 2018 but has been inactive in recent years. Currently, the Committee consists of 10 members, of which five are representatives of public authorities and five of civil society. According to the Government, the relaunch of the Committee's activity represents a commitment to involve civil society in carrying out the reforms of the open government agenda.
The Republic of Moldova became a member of the OGP in 2011. Over the years, it developed and reported the implementation of 4 national action plans for open government. The current plan 2023-2025 is the 5th Action Plan for Open Government, the previous plan covered the period of 2019-2020.