On November 15, the Anti-Corruption Agency gives start to a two-day seminar on the topic ‘Criteria for assessing the openness of the activities of government agencies and organizations.’

It is attended by employees of more than 30 government agencies and organizations responsible for ensuring openness.

This event is a logical continuation of the work carried out by the Agency in order to improve the skills and knowledge of employees of government bodies and organizations responsible for ensuring openness in the field of open data policy and mechanisms for its implementation.

For reference: Today, the Agency has launched a system of regular training for employees responsible for ensuring openness in government agencies. This year alone, 10 seminars were held aimed at training employees of government agencies responsible for the field of openness, and more than 200 civil servants underwent trainings.

In addition, the Agency’s specialists regularly conduct online monitoring of compliance by government agencies and organizations with obligations to ensure the openness of their activities and take measures to eliminate the identified shortcomings.

The analysis shows that a number of government agencies and organizations do not comply with the obligations to perform work in the field of openness, that is, the procedure and terms for publishing open data have not been established. As a result, there are cases of untimely publication or incomplete disclosure of information on official websites or the Open Data Portal.

By organizing such seminars, the Agency provides detailed explanations, practical advice and recommendations on the mistakes and shortcomings that are made in government agencies and organizations.

As noted by the participants and organizers of the seminar, the openness and transparency of the activities of government agencies and organizations to the public, the accountability of officials to the people is determined by a number of legal documents at the level of the head of state.

In particular, the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan of June 16, 2021 ‘On additional measures to ensure the openness of the activities of government agencies and organizations, as well as the effective implementation of public control’ approved the List of socially significant information to be placed as open data in the assigned resources, and now a systematic work is established to monitor the placement of open data in the manner prescribed by law.

According to the adopted Law ‘On Amendments and Additions to the Administrative Responsibility Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan’, the Code was supplemented with Article 215-7, which establishes liability for violation of the law on the openness of the activities of public authorities and administration.

Another important document developed by the Agency is the Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan of June 14, 2022 ‘On measures to increase the level of openness of the activities of government agencies and organizations and the introduction of assessment system’, which approved the Openness Index, aimed at assessing the effectiveness of ongoing work on openness in government agencies and organizations.

For reference: by the end of the year, the Agency will publish an Openness Index aimed at assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of ongoing work on openness in public authorities and administration, as well as in business entities and state unitary enterprises with a state share in the authorized capital of 50 percent or more.

The Openness Index is determined on the basis of 8 indicators, including the placement of information on the official websites of government agencies and organizations and the state of the provision of electronic public services, the publication of socially significant information in information resources, the well-established system of accountability to society, etc.

During the seminar, participants are given clarifications on the aspects that should be paid attention to in order to correctly publish information on these indicators, comply with the requirements of legislative documents on openness, as well as how to achieve high scores in the Openness Index.

The program of the event includes reports on the analysis of compliance with the legislation on openness by government agencies and organizations. During the dialogue on this topic, the participants discuss in detail the shortcomings identified by the results of the study and remote monitoring, and put forward proposals for their elimination and prevention.

The seminar examines the performance of employees responsible for ensuring openness in government agencies and organizations, posting information on official websites and providing electronic public services, assessing cases of using the principles of openness in early detection of corruption and their prevention.

Participants are also given detailed information on the placement of socially significant information in the information resources specified by law and the establishment of a system of accountability to the population.

Press Office

The Anti-Corruption Agency