Nout van der Vaart – Hivos/Open Government Partnership

Currently a member of the Open Government Partnership’s Civil Society Engagement Team, Nout van der Vaart has been working on informing and engaging civil society organisations worldwide on the Open Government Partnership (OGP). This initiative, launched in 2011, aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. The Civil Society Engagement team, hosted by Dutch development organisation Hivos, supports national civil society actors in selected countries to ensure that they are well-positioned to actively participate in and make use of OGP for achieving their open government objectives. Also, the team aims to ensure that the civil society community is better equipped and informed to play its role in achieving open government objectives and partnering with their government on OGP. Currently, Nout is responsible for communications and outreach to the civil society community and for overall implementation of the program. Nout has earned an MSc. degree in (Law and Governance in) International Development Studies at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.