Action plan – Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2021 – 2023

At-a-Glance

Duration

Oct 2023

Date Submitted

30th July 2021

Foreword(s)

The City of Buenos Aires has been part of the Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More since 2016, and has presented two action plans during this period.

Both the co-creation processes and the commitments assumed in both plans were evolutionary, seeking each time to expand the participation of civil society, generate innovative methodologies and achieve consensus on priorities and impact agendas of the City.

For the 3rd Action Plan, we seek to continue improving the work to achieve better results and achieve a Plan with robust commitments that involve the various pillars of open government, and new government agendas that are a priority.

The process of co-creation and monitoring of the implementation of the commitments is led by the Undersecretariat for Open Government and Accountability, under the General Secretariat and International Relations, and by the City’s Open Government Board.

Among the purposes for this Action Plan, we seek to:

• Continue deepening the vision of Open State, incorporating in the Plan commitments of the three branches of government and, in particular, commitments that strengthen their articulation will be sought.
• Influence the Government’s strategic agenda by incorporating the open government vision into the areas’ planning.
• Link the commitments of the Action Plan with the Government commitments.
• Expand the open government community by involving new stakeholders, such as thematic and territorial CSOs, citizens, private sectorGovernments are working to open private sector practices as well — including through beneficial ownership transparency, open contracting, and regulating environmental standards. Technical specificat... businesses, and academia.
• Shape policy related to the aiding of the City of Buenos Aires’ vulnerable groups.
• Generate government commitments with greater impact on the lives of citizens.

Open Government Challenges, Opportunities and Strategic Vision

This subsection details the Open Government Strategic Vision in your local area that should guide the commitments for the action plan period.

What is the long-term vision for open government in your context and jurisdiction?

In the coming years we will seek to deepen the vision of open gov, in particular, we will focus our efforts on 3 objectives: 1. Strengthen the vision of open gov in a transversal way to the government: Over the next few years we will seek to influence the agenda of new government agencies through open government. This will allow us to achieve in the long term a full transversality of the open government agenda in all ministries and areas of government. Also, we will work on redesigning strategies for approaching and collaborating with areas and developing tools to support areas in their open government processes. 2. Broaden the community and collaboration of the Open Gov: We will seek to convene new stakeholders such as thematic and territorial civil society organizations, academic, private sector and citizens. Also, we will seek to improve the engagement of these actors through the generation of participation instances based on the interests surveyed, and through the generation of capacities. These actions will be carried out by the City’s Open State Forum. 3. Strengthen collective intelligence to generate value through open government: we will work to focus our open government initiatives on the search for answers and on improving the quality of life of the city’s residents, in particular, in the vulnerable groups. Also, on generating collective intelligence processes that provide feedback to government processes in order to generate public value.

What are the achievements in open government to date (for example, recent open government reforms)?

Recent initiatives:

• BA Climate Change: a platform that brings together in one place all the energyEnsuring universal access to sustainable, dependable, and affordable energy is critical to every aspect of prosperity. Increasing public oversight and transparency in the energy sector can help to ens... efficiency, sustainable mobility and waste management policies implemented by the local government to fight climate change. The design was based on the principles of transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More, collaboration, citizen participationAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, citizen participation occurs when “governments seek to mobilize citizens to engage in public debate, provide input, and make contributions that lead to m... More, accountability and innovation. The platform was co-created with strategic actors in the city of Buenos Aires, which involved the development of collaborative processes with environmental CSOs, experts in climate change, and residents.

• COVID-19 public purchases: This initiative makes the purchase of goods and services that the City of Buenos Aires carries out to fight the pandemic and strengthen the health system fully open and transparent.

• COVID-19 open data: This is an open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... initiative that presents datasets on the management of the pandemic in the City of Buenos Aires. Through real-time images and graphics, it allows residents to follow the evolution of the epidemiological situation. It includes information on health and territorial management to detect, isolate and treat Covid-19 cases. It also shows the impact of the measures implemented on public and private transport and in the use of public space to reinforce social distancing.

What are the current challenges/areas for improvement in open government that the jurisdiction wishes to tackle?

One of the objectives of our strategic vision is linked to the generation of value. In this aspect, for the 3rd Action Plan we seek to generate commitments with a greater impact on the lives of the residents of the City, and linked to vulnerable groups.

For this reason, the areas we want to work with are those linked to guaranteeing rights, particularly for vulnerable people and groups.

We will also continue working, at the request of civil society organizations, in the areas related to public expenditure, on which we have been working due to their relevant role in accountability.

What are the medium-term open government goals that the government wants to achieve?

Based on the objectives of the strategic vision of the City of Buenos Aires, the medium-term goals are:

1) Generation of methodology and work tools to mainstream open government. In line with our goal “Deepen the vision of open government in a transversal way to the government” we will work in the next two years in the construction of a working methodology that allows working in a continuous and orderly manner with government areas.

2) Strengthen collaboration: one of the goals of the open government area is linked to “Expand the community and collaboration of the Open Government Ecosystem”, for that we will focus on three medium-term objectives:

– Formation of communities of practice around open data and open government, conceived as a space for exchange and learning.

– Generation of an engagement process with civil society organizations of the Open State Roundtable for the integration of new organizations.

– Call for new organizations for the following instances of co-creation of the OGP Action Plan.

3) Generation of instances of collective intelligence: based on the objective of “Strengthening collective intelligence to generate value through open government” we will work on two projects:

– Forums about data reusing and generating communities.

– Accountability of co-creation processes.

How does this action plan contribute to achieve the Open Government Strategic Vision?

The 3rd Action Plan has purposes derived from the objectives of the strategic vision of the City. In this sense, thematic axes and proposals on commitments to be addressed related to these purposes were prioritized. With respect to the thematic axes of the Action Plan, the five priority axes of government were taken as a basis. This idea arose from the analysis of previous action plans, where it was identified that those commitments that were not linked to agendas planned by the areas had a lower percentage of compliance. Thus, we understand that based on the priority axes and planning, open government commitments that add value and are linked to the needs and requests of civil society can be incorporated. In this way, the Plan will have more possibilities of influencing the strategic agenda of open gov, and contribute to the sought-after mainstreaming of open government.

On the other hand, proposals related to access of rights by vulnerable populations were prioritized, and this made it possible to establish links with areas of government with which we had never worked before.

Finally, and linked to collective intelligence, the Plan and its call for the co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive... works as a “gateway” to convene new stakeholders to work in the Open Gov Ecosystem. Likewise, all the commitments seek to ensure that the process has instances of collective intelligence that provide constant feedback to the process, and that civil society also participates in the implementation.

How does the open government strategic vision contribute to the accomplishment of the current administration’s overall policy goals?

One of the pillars of government promoted by the administration of the current City Mayor, Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, is open government.

In this sense, the current government constantly aims to involve citizens through citizen participation and to work on evidence-based public policies.

By taking the government’s priority axes as thematic axes of the Action Plan, the commitments are aligned to the government’s agendas. In this way, the Plan strengthens these areas of work by incorporating the vision of open government and initiatives for collaboration and open information.

Engagement and Coordination in the Open Government Strategic Vision and OGP Action Plan

Please list the lead institutions responsible for the implementation of this OGP action plan.

• Undersecretary for Open Government and Accountability,General Secretariat andInternational Relations

What kind of institutional arrangements are in place to coordinate between government agencies and departments to implement the OGP action plan?

Open government policies and, in particular, the coordination of OGP Action Plans depend on the Undersecretariat for Open Government and Accountability, which is under the orbit of the General Secretariat and International Relations, an area of coordination of strategic projects, with a cross-cutting view of the whole government. The characteristics of this Secretariat allow it to take on the role of coordinating cross-cutting strategies such as open government and the Action Plan.

What kind of spaces have you used or created to enable the collaboration between government and civil society in the co-creation and implementation of this action plan? Mention both offline and online spaces.

The co-creation process was designed in three stages:

Stage one: a public consultation was launched for the submission of proposals for all residents to identify issues of interest and possible commitments. This call was open to the public. Once the proposals were collected, they were sent to the areas responsible for each possible commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action..., and meetings were held between the open government team and the areas to work on the feasibility of each one.

 Stage two: Once the feasibility of the proposals and the willingness of the areas to participate in the Plan had been analyzed, the first virtual co-creation round-tables were planned. Each co-creation round-table was thematic and was organized in two stages during the same virtual meeting. First, the responsible areas presented the proposals received, giving feedback on the status of the situation and explaining the prioritization made. Based on this presentation, participants were able to ask questions and make comments, and a virtual board was completed. In a second stage, and based on the work done in the first board, the topic of the commitment was selected collaboratively, and a second board was completed with questions linked to the OGP commitment sheet.

 Stage three: Based on the results of the co-creation round-tables the open gov team completed the OGP commitments sheet and shared the draft text with all participants so that they could incorporate comments or observations.

What measures did you take to ensure diversity of representation (including vulnerable or marginalized populations) in these spaces?

The calling strategy was directed in two ways:

1. Open call: the call was made by mail to the entire database of the Undersecretariat of Open Government and Accountability, and was disseminated on social networks.
2. Personalized call: a survey of civil society organizations, academic institutions and other stakeholders was carried out and they were invited to meetings to present the OGP project in order to invite them to participate in an informed manner. These actors were surveyed and invited for their particular knowledge of the thematic axes of the commitments.

Who participated in these spaces?

Civil society organizations, academic institutions, public sector representatives and citizens.

How many groups participated in these spaces?

22

How many public-facing meetings were held in the co-creation process?

3

How will government and non-governmental stakeholders continue to collaborate through the implementation of the action plan?

Participants in the co-creation process will be able to continue their participation through different instances:

1. Open State Forum: where civil society organizations participate in representation of this sector.
2. Instances foreseen in the commitments: the commitments include instances of participation for collaborative diagnoses and work.
3. Second and third instances of co-creation: for the co-creation of new commitments, two new instances of co-creation are foreseen where continuity will be given to the proposals received in the first instance and that were not dealt with, and to new proposals that come up.
4. Commitment follow-up meetings: for the follow-up of commitments, follow-up meetings with the actors participating in the co-creation process are expected.

Please describe the independent Monitoring Body you have identified for this plan.

The University of Tres de Febrero, through a collaboration agreement, will develop a methodology for the evaluation and the process and each commitment after its implementation.

Provide the contact details for the independent monitoring body.

• To be defined

What types of activities will you have in place to discuss progress on commitments with stakeholders?

The Undersecretariat for Open Government and Accountability will continuously follow up on the commitments with the areas and civil society organizations. To this end, follow-up meetings will be held, evidence will be requested to report on progress, and support will be provided for the implementation of actions.

How will you regularly check in on progress with implementing agencies?

The regularity will depend on each commitment and the duration of each milestone, but on average the area will be contacted on a monthly basis.

How will you share the results of your monitoring efforts with the public?

Through evidence that accounts for progress on a public Trello tracking dashboard.

Endorsement from Non-Governmental Stakeholders

• Michelle Volpin, Coordinator, Directorio Legislativo
• Yamila García, Director, Fundación Conocimiento Abierto
• Joaquín Caprarulo, Coordinator, Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia

Tercer plan de acción de Gobierno Abierto de la Ciudad