Turning open government into infrastructure that serves people

by Gloria Di Martino, Communications Consultant

“History shows that progress toward more open government is hard won. It was often achieved through civil disobedience, mass protest, and great personal sacrifice. Whether fighting for women’s suffrage, resisting apartheid, or confronting dictatorships, those who led these struggles didn’t take open government for granted. Neither should we.” — Petter Matthews, Executive Director, CoST – Infrastructure Transparency Initiative 

This week is Open Gov Week, the initiative led by the Open Government Partnership (OGP) that brings together governments, civil society, and citizens to promote openness, transparency, and collaboration in public life. To us at CoST, we reflected on how open government can support driving infrastructure which transforms lives and strengthens economies.

This sentiment is something echoed by Melina, our Lead Programme Manager who told us, “Institutions that work better for the citizens and the communities they serve, driving collaboration to catalyse inclusive and sustainable growth through people-centred and participatory policymaking.” 

CoST shares this commitment by bringing together government, civil society, and the private sector to improve transparency and accountability in infrastructure delivery. As Eyasu Yimer, CoST Board Civil Society Representative, noted, open governance is rooted in the principle that citizens have a right to understand how public resources are used. Through open data, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and practical reforms, CoST helps translate open government principles into practical action. As Justine Wharton, Head of Advocacy & Communications at CoST, noted, “Infrastructure decisions shape people’s everyday lives — from safe schools and well-equipped hospitals to reliable roads and resilient bridges. The people who live with their consequences should have a meaningful role in shaping them.”  

Aida Martínez Mórtola, our INL Programme Manager, shared that through her experience with CoST in Latin America, she has seen how “engaging the private sector is critical — not only as contractors or service providers, but as key partners in promoting integrity, fair competition, and better governance practices across the entire infrastructure cycle.”

Manuel Gonzalez Caballero, CoST Senior Regional Manager for Latin America, stressed that open government is increasingly important for improving public investment, reducing corruption risks, and rebuilding trust in infrastructure. “As governments face growing fiscal and social pressures,” he said, “open government approaches are essential to ensuring that infrastructure investments are more transparent, efficient, and responsive to citizens’ needs.”

These challenges are not limited to Latin America. Across regions, governments are pressured to deliver infrastructure that is transparent, accountable, and responsive to public needs. As Olive Kabatwairwe, Africa Regional Manager and Learning Lead at CoST, noted, infrastructure remains one of the largest public investments governments’ make, but also one of the sectors most vulnerable to corruption and misuse of funds. In this context, she argued, “transparency must become the foundation for sustainable development, ethical business, and public trust.” This was also reflected by Tara, CoST Kaduna Manager, Planning Officer and OGP Point of Contact for Kaduna’s Planning and Budget Commission. He told us that in Kaduna, “Kaduna leverages open government principles to publish detailed project data from identification to completion through the CoST’s data standards. This addresses historic challenges, such as delayed payments and eroded trust.”

But sustaining these efforts requires continued commitment. As Petter Matthews warned, many countries are facing growing restrictions on civic space, weakening support for anti-corruption efforts, and declining investment in democratic governance. Yet the importance remains. Maria Prado, Lead Research and Policy Adviser expressed “open government agenda will remain essential to ensure that public needs are met, particularly in complex and high-stakes sectors as infrastructure.”

As Michael Cengkuru, Open Data Specialist at CoST, observed, public money rarely disappears “in one dramatic moment.” Instead, it leaks through “missing fields, vague contracts, silent revisions, unnamed suppliers, and projects that nobody can trace from promise to delivery.” CoST’s work, he explained, is to “turn that fog into a public record.”

By making infrastructure decisions more visible and understandable, open government helps strengthen trust between institutions and the people they serve. As Marta Acosta Vega, Country Manager of CoST Panamá, noted, “Open government is not an aspiration, it is a precondition for trust.”

Estíbaliz Pérez, Country Manager of CoST Costa Rica, reinforced this point, noting that trust begins with transparency that helps citizens understand “how decisions are made, how public funds are used, and why accountability matters” while also strengthening dialogue and collaboration between different stakeholders. Across the CoST network, members continue to demonstrate how this collaborative approach can turn transparency into better governance and stronger infrastructure outcomes.

Our partners at the Infrastructure Secretary of Cali, noted that embracing open government and joining CoST has helped strengthen reforms based on transparency, participation, and accountability, while also encouraging public institutions to commit to better practices. Through “this collaborative approach,” they added, “it is possible to build greater public trust and promote more open, fair, and competitive infrastructure processes.”

Nicolas Ronderos, Senior Programme Manager for Private Sector at CoST, also highlighted the importance of open government in creating “the trust and predictability needed to commit long-term capital to infrastructure.” When governments disclose data and engage stakeholders, he noted, the private sector gains confidence to invest responsibly and competitively.

As Open Gov Week begins, CoST members around the world continue demonstrating that open government is not only about data publication. It is about creating systems where citizens, governments, civil society, and the private sector can engage around the same evidence — giving the public, as Michael Cengkuru described it, “a seat at the procurement table” and ensuring, as Marta Acosta Vega put it, that infrastructure ultimately “serves people, not the other way around.”

Reflecting on CoST’s role in this, Hamish Goldie-Scot, our Technical Advisor shared “CoST can help by ensuring that infrastructure decisions are visible, well-documented, and open to informed challenge, while recognising that better outcomes come not from replacing professional judgement, but from grounding it in objective data and meaningful stakeholder understanding.”