Event Summary
Sri Lanka’s commitment to transparent and participatory governance is being tested as the current government continues to delay engagement with the Open Government Partnership (OGP) process. Although this criticism is targeted at the new administration, it is also underpinned by a longstanding pattern of neglect by previous governments, due to their failure to submit a National Action Plan for three consecutive years (2021, 2022, and 2023) pursuant to OGP standards.
As the deadline for submission of an Action Plan was 10 May 2025 , the co-conveners representing the civil society organizations (CSO) collective in the OGP process in Sri Lanka proactively reached out to the government in anticipation of a renewed commitment to restoring Sri Lanka’s active participation in the OGP. This readiness to re-engage was encouraged by the new government’s stated commitment to repealing legislation that restricts participatory governance and civil liberties.
However, despite repeated outreach by the co-conveners to initiate engagement, the relevant government entities – namely, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Presidential Secretariat, and the Parliamentary Caucus for the Open Parliament Initiative—have neither acknowledged nor provided any clarification regarding the government’s stance on re-engaging with the OGP process.
Furthermore, the formal communication sent by the OGP Headquarters in Washington to the Government of Sri Lanka in December 2024 has also gone unanswered. As a result, Sri Lanka has lost the crucial opportunity to restore its active status and retain its membership in the OGP.