Overall proposal

Proposal
SCVO, in collaboration with Involve, Northern Ireland Environment Link and Wales Council for Voluntary Action, wishes to use the opportunity presented by the active participation of civil society and government across the nations in the Open Government Partnership (OGP) to open up the process of working towards the Sustainable Development Goals. In addition, we wish to use Scotland's global OGP subnational pioneer status to reach out to the civil society partners in the other 14 sub-national jurisdictions, to share, understand and learn from their pioneering practice. This is a timely opportunity to bring others’ experience of progressive social change into debate and discussion with Scottish Government, the UK Government, Northern Ireland Executive and Welsh Government. We would see this as catalysing a longer term programme, drawing also on the experience of the UK-based International Development Community, to engage UK civil society, citizens and governments in the global movement around the Sustainable Development Goals

Timeline and events
Pioneer status formally lasts for two years, during which we are supported by the OGP global secretariat to develop action plans, start their implementation, and subject them to independent review by a global panel of experts. A key milestone is December 2016, when the OGP global summit of governments and civil society partners is due to meet in Paris. Key themes of the summit will be civil society capacity building and taking open government practices closer to communities and citizens. It is expected both the UK, Scottish and possibly other devolved governments will be represented at the highest levels, and we would hope to also facilitate significant civil society engagement.

Plan
Initially, the core project partners aim to work with the Big Lottery Fund UK to bring some basic capacity to the project.

We have also identified a number of other partners, agencies and supporters who we believe are interested in providing resources, expertise and profile for civil society activity to make the best use of open government approaches in helping our governments meet Sustainable Development Goals.
 * We will use the following guiding approach and ethos, starting with a clear approach to governance and led (initially) by the following partners.
 * We will work to the following set of aims and outcomes