Public Policy and Administration Review

Open Government Partnership (OGP): Combating Corruption, Regaining and Building Public Trust in the Government of Egypt
Dr. Sherifa Fouad Sherif

Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze and describe the importance of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) on both the government and citizen level while introducing indicators for measuring government openness. Egypt has gone through major economic downfall and severe political instability as a result of two revolutions, January 25th, 2011 and June 30th, 2013. The first revolution was in protest of the corrupt actions of entrenched politicians and crony businessmen. The second uprising was a revolt against the Muslim Brotherhood who came to power 2013. A series of events during previous regimes led to the breeding of mistrust of citizens towards the government. Regaining of citizen trust in the government of Egypt after the uprisings will be the focal point of this paper. Egypt's current government faces the challenges of culling the clean from the corrupt and seeking equitable relief as a result of the actions of the former leaderships, a process which continues to remain highly charged, highly politicized and increasingly unmanageable, resulting in the call for social justice, employment, freedom and democracy. Research Problem: Implementing the open government initiative will pave the path to a more democratic Egypt, combat corruption, institutionalizing a fair system across all government entities and help in regaining trust of citizens. Methodology: This paper is an exploratory study on Egypt with a comparative perspective, using primary and secondary data. Findings: The findings of this paper show that Egypt has started the path towards a more open system through the implementation of e-government. Egypt to date is not signatory to Open Government Partnership (OGP) and the freedom of information law has not yet been past. By being part of the OGP movement this will help regain and build citizen trust in the government. Limitations of the study: Due to the lack of awareness of the open government concept on both the government and citizen level, this is an exploratory study aiming to shed light on the importance of awareness and the implementation of the concept in Egypt. Originality/Value: This is one of few research papers focusing on OGP as a means of regaining and building trust in the Egyptian Government.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/ppar.v3n1a4