Opening up government

The Gov 2.0 summit, September 7-8 in Washington, highlights innovation in openness and transparency. A quick look at the videos of some of the speakers shows the variety of efforts directed at a more open, participatory government.

Challenge.gov went live at the summit. This site intends to involve the citizenry in solving some tough problems usually left to government to face alone. I saw two challenges related to development. The U.S. Department of Treasury created the G-20 SME Finance Challenge. The U.S. Agency for International Development started LAUNCH: Health.

This summer I worked with a group of people to equip government managers with the tools they need to be more open. We focused on steps individuals can take to engage the public more effectively. Join our discussion on Smarter, Better, Open Government.

For a discussion focused on transparency in international aid, join the Aid Transparency group on LinkedIn started by Claudia Schwegmann of Open Aid.

The U.K's aid agency is inviting input on how to be more transparent.

What efforts do you know of that are fostering more open and transparent government?