Sanjay Pradhan
As CEO of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), Sanjay Pradhan supports the countries, local governments and thousands of civil society organizations working to make governments more open, participatory and less corrupt. He leads OGP’s policy dialogue with Heads of States, senior ministers and civil society organizations across the partnership, and serves as OGP’s global spokesperson.
Bringing a wealth of open government and innovation experience to the role, he previously served in three senior positions at the World Bank: as the Vice President for Leadership, Learning and Innovation, the Vice President of the World Bank Institute, and the Director for Governance. While at the World Bank, Mr. Pradhan tirelessly promoted open development. He led the World Bank’s Governance and Anticorruption Strategy, launched the Global Partnership for Social Accountability, incubated ICT-mediated citizen feedback to improve governance, initiated Open Contracting with Partners, and rolled out a flagship Collaborative Leadership for Development program to help government and civil society leaders undertake collaborative actions. During his tenure at the World Bank, Sanjay gained extensive experience working in Africa, South Asia, Europe and Central Asia.
Mr. Pradhan is a global spokesperson and distinguished speaker on open governance and anticorruption issues, appearing in major world forums including the TED Global Conference, the UN General Assembly, the European Parliament, the BBC World Debate, South by Southwest (SXSW), London Anti-Corruption Summit, IACC, and OGP Global Summits in Europe, Asia and the Americas. He has published widely, and was a principal author of the 1997 World Development Report, The State in a Changing World. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics and Business and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Harvard University.
- Model
- Non-profit Social Enterprise
- Headquarters
- USA
- Areas of Impact
- North America
Open Government Partnership
The Open Government Partnership (OGP) was launched at the UN General Assembly in 2011. In ten years, 78 countries and 76 local governments - together representing more than 2 billion people - along with thousands of civil society organizations have joined the partnership. The goal is to ensure that governments truly serve their citizens rather than themselves. To achieve this, over the past decade government and civil society have together co-created more than 4,500 reforms - reforms to make governments more transparent, participatory and responsive to citizens, and less corrupt. Over 20 percent of these reforms have been independently assessed to have made governments significantly more open. At a time when democracy is under threat, authoritarianism is on the rise, and citizen trust in government has plummeted, courageous OGP reformers and activists are advancing innovative reforms that renew democracy beyond the ballot box, empowering citizens to shape and oversee public policies, services and institutions. They are also helping to tackle the confluence of other crises - pandemic, recession, inequality, climate. In today’s challenging global context, OGP seeks to forge a positive global force to renew democracy at a time of threat, and a countervailing force against the rise of authoritarianism.