Paul Braithwaite

Paul Braithwaite works for the Building Change Trust, an endowment-based Trust set up in 2008 by the National Lottery to promote and support change in the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector in Northern Ireland. Paul leads on two of the Trust's five themes: Social Innovation and Creative Space for Civic Thinking. Prior to joining the Trust Paul worked in a number of roles include community relations work in North Belfast and around 8 years in the international development field, including 4 years living abroad in Pakistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

We need a national conversation

Paul Braithwaite on July 24, 2015, 1:00 pm

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A deep and wide process of engagement with citizens to co-create a future vision for N(n)orthern Ireland could help jolt our peace process and our politicians out of the stalemate we find ourselves in. I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to work in a few far-flung places, including Pakistan, DRC and Rwanda – each of which have longstanding conflicts, many strongly driven by an inability to peacefully resolve issues over tribal, ethnic or religious identity. One thing that’s undeniably …

Open Government in Practice 2 – Open Policy Making

Paul Braithwaite on November 3, 2014, 2:58 pm

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Paul Braithwaite has been leading the Building Change Trust’s work exploring the issue of open government over the past year, focusing on the international Open Government Partnership initiative and its potential in Northern Ireland. Last week the topic in focus was open budgets, this week it’s the turn of open policy making. A new era in politics has arrived. People around the world are demanding more openness, democracy, effectiveness and accountability from their governments, and already case studies showing …

Open Government in Practice – Open Budgets

Paul Braithwaite on October 29, 2014, 4:42 pm

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Paul Braithwaite has been leading the Building Change Trust’s work exploring the issue of open government over the past year, focusing on the international Open Government Partnership initiative and its potential in Northern Ireland. Here he explores what open government can mean in practice through focusing in on one approach that has been gaining serious traction around the world: open budgets. The Trust is hosting the launch of the NI Open Government Network on 5th November (more information below). …

Open Government Partnership in NI – What’s the Next step?

Paul Braithwaite on June 9, 2014, 2:10 pm

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Off the back of the hugely successful Open Government Partnership seminar held in Belfast at the end of May, the Building Change Trust are hosting a follow-up discussion this Thursday to see where we can go next with bringing this International Initiative to Northern Ireland. The OGP is an international framework of government commitments to transparency, accountability and citizen participation. It functions in each signatory country via a government-civil society partnership, the role of the latter being to both support …

Beyond Voting: Can Civil Society Unite Behind an Open Government Agenda?

Paul Braithwaite on May 20, 2014, 2:42 pm

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In the wake of last week’s seminar held by the Building Change Trust, project lead Paul Braithwaite discusses the potential implementation of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in Northern Ireland. It wouldn’t be controversial to say that there is the perception that open, participative government isn’t being practiced in Northern Ireland. Any number of issues could be raised when discussing this key problem, from delays in Freedom of Information requests to the transparency of political party financing. Such is the …