Strategic Sustainable Development for transparent, accountable and participatory governments

Abstract: During the last century, the world has faced unprecedented challenges relating to the degradation of the socio-ecological system. In light of this, governments play an important role to help tackle these issues. This thesis identifies the Open Government Partnership (OGP) organisation, as an initiative that can support governments in addressing these challenges. In particular, the potential to address these issues relates to OGP’s vision of strengthening governance by increasing transparency, accountability and participation. Therefore, the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (FSSD) was used to analyse the results from the semi-structured interviews, literature review and document analysis, in order to identify the strengths and limitations of OGP’s planning approach. Based on these results, recommendations call for the utilisation of the ABCD strategic planning process to assist OGP member governments and stakeholders to develop a concrete definition of sustainability, and a strategic planning approach that can support society in moving towards sustainability.