Significance Of Transparency In Government

In an enabled environment, where there is effective free flow of information both ways, openness through transparency becomes a means to greater civic participation in order to see through the workings of the government and to verify whether or not public servants are meeting their obligations to citizens' expectations. 

 

•    To account for unacceptable conduct, decisions, and actions, all four components of accountability, namely answerability, sanction, redress, and system improvement, require information. 

 

•    Demand side accountability has emerged as a result of gaps in traditional supply side accountability. "Social accountability is the establishment of long-term societal control over policymaking and implementation." 

 

•    Civil society is increasingly demonstrating its ability to participate directly in horizontal accountability institutions. This can apply to all aspects of the development process, including planning (people's planning), programming, budgeting (budget analysis, participatory budgeting), fund release (fund release publication, public expenditure review), contract award (procurement watch, integrity pact), and contract monitoring (independent quality inspection). 

•    Following planning, this could include implementation (hospital advisory committees, management committees, community forest management), progress (corruption watch), evaluation (citizen report cards, community scorecards), and audit (public hearings, participatory audits, citizen audit requests, audit compliance monitoring, general law on social audit)". 

 

1.    Right to information

 

2.    Civic engagement in governance processes

 

3.    Transparency. 

 

• Government and public servants must be held accountable for what they say and do.

 

•    After World War II, the term "open government" was coined in the United States.

 

•    The governing doctrine of open government holds that citizens have the right to access government documents and proceedings in order to ensure effective public oversight. 

 

•    It opposes state reason and other considerations, which have tended to legitimise extensive state secrecy, in its broadest sense. 

 

•    The origins of open-government debates can be traced back to the European Age of Enlightenment, when philosophers debated the best way to build a nascent democratic society. 

 

•    It's also becoming more closely associated with the idea of democratic reform. For example, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 advocates for open government as a criterion for ensuring accountable and inclusive institutions.

 

•    Open government refers to a system in which government and administration are made accessible to all citizens, at all levels, in order to ensure effective public participation, scrutiny, and oversight.

 

•    The term "open government" has a broad definition, but it is most often associated with the concepts of government transparency and accountability. 

 

•    Open government is now widely regarded as a key hallmark of contemporary democratic practise, and it is frequently associated with the passage of freedom of information legislation.

 

•    The United States' Open Government Initiatives, as well as Canadian Government Initiatives, seek to bring an unprecedented level of openness to government, resulting in a framework that can be emulated. 

 

•    The early tidings of open government in India can be said to have begun with Justice P. N. Bhagawati of the Supreme Court of India's landmark judgement in 1981 (Gupta S.P. vs Union of India (1982)), where, in addition to giving a general description of open government, he emphasised the need for increased transparency in matters relating to public affairs. 

 

•    He went on to describe Open Government in India as "the new democratic culture of an open society toward which every liberal democracy is moving and our country (India) should be no exception," noting that "information available to the public with greater exposure of the functioning of government would help assure the people a better and more efficient administration."