End of Commitment Report – Civic Education: teach citizens how the administrations and its process work to promote social participation in decision-making

Name of Evaluator

Gabriela de Brelaz

Email

gabriela.brelaz@unifesp.br

Member Name

Osasco, Brazil

Action PlanAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... Title

Action plan – Osasco, Brazil, 2021 – 2024

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...

Civic EducationAccountability within the public education system is key to improving outcomes and attainment, and accountability is nearly impossible without transparent policies and opportunities for participation ...: teach citizens how the administrations and its process work to promote social participation in decision-making

Action

The commitment seeks to create a project that institutes permanent citizen education for bureaucrats and public in general to make public policy more accessible and understandable, guiding the decision by public demands, also, once these stakeholders have this kind of instruments, they will be able to simplify process at the administration and sharing 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 culture. As public point of view, this kind of commitment represents opening space for them be a part of the process, by making flexible hour and location to public participate. Eventually, we expect the administration to open spaces where people could share their knowledge and information about public themes, approximating management and society.

Problem

This commitment intends to be a part of the citizen education, especially social and political themes, due to the fragile or barely existence of political educational sector, consequently, citizens encounter a lot of difficulties when comes to effective social participation. The commitment 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... shows that there isn’t a political educational platform to bureaucrats nor to citizens, also, Osasco doesn’t use its public spaces to educational activities or any kind that stimulates 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, like partnerships with universities or non-governmental organizations.

1.1 What was the overall level of progress in the commitment implementation at the time of this assessment?

complete

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The OG Department developed civic education initiatives with support of Contando as Contas Booklet and Game in schools, social assistance equipment’s for children and the elderly population, Fundação Casa, NGOs, universities and city councils producing reports and providing pictures about these initiatives. This experience was vital for the development of actions of this compromise, the development of two projects that relate to civic/political education: one focused on citizens and public agents with a multidisciplinary course schedule, a permanent calendar and adequate infrastructure, and one focused on agents that will multiply the course among different spaces in the municipality.
As Osasco has around 730.000 inhabitants, according to the 2023 Brazilian Census, and the Open Government Department’s human resources are limited, developing partnerships with other public, private, and nonprofit institutions for educational activities spread in the territory is necessary.

Provide evidence that supports and justifies your answer:

• Collection of evidences

1.2 Describe the main external or internal factors that impacted implementation of this commitment and how they were addressed (or not).

When we analyzed the actions of the second commitment, we observed their intersectionality with some of the actions of the first commitment of the 1st Open Government Action Plan, which seems natural given that the initial implementation of the action plan followed the commitments co-created with civil society and the initial needs of the city.

Although commitments with different actions, territorializing participation and promoting citizen education are interconnected commitments, which have been reflected in the actions that have been carried out over the last two years. The workshops held on the public budget, as well as the course for multipliers, in addition to territorializing participation, are also citizen education actions.

This commitment also benefited from PNUD consultancy and reports delivered that provided material for a better situational diagnostic and therefore the development of well-suited projects with guidelines and methodologies for training managers and promoting participation and civic education.

1.3 Was the commitment implemented as originally planned?

All of the commitment milestones were implemented as planned

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The projects were developed at the end of the Action Plan period after having conducted educational activities and those conducted by PNUD consultant. As the compromise 1 and 2 have intersectionality the activities developed for compromise also can be considered political/civic education and although this wasn’t originally planned, it became in this case a positive externality.
The intersectionality between commitments, although it may be natural in the case of implementing actions under a public policy, can make it difficult to carry them out. Therefore, in future action plans, we suggest creating commitments with a greater capacity to differentiate between them.

Provide evidence for your answer:

• Collection of evidences

2.1.1. – Did the government disclose more information; improve the quality of the information (new or existing); improve the value of the information; improve the channels to disclose or request information or improve accessibility to information?

Yes

Degree of result:

Marginal

Explanation: In narrative form, what has been the impact on people or practice.

The educational activities and workshops conducted in schools, social assistance equipment’s for children and elderly population, Fundação Casa, NGOs, universities and city councils contributed to disclose more information, improve the quality and value of the information, taught about channels to access and request public information, but at this stage it was conducted in small quantity events by the Open Government Department Staff and PNUD consultant.
The multiplier project, one of the products of this compromise will allow in the next years a gain in scale as it will permit the program and political/citizen educational activities to grow and territorialize in all the city impacting all age citizens. Following a precise number of future students will be important to access impact evaluation.

In the future, the materials prepared for the formation of the most varied groups can be made available on the Transparency Portal, Visão 360 and Participa Osasco. In addition, they can be disseminated on different communication channels such as Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Provide evidence for your answer:

• Collection of evidences

2.1.2. – Did the government create new opportunities to seek feedback from citizens/enable participation inform or influence decisions; improve existing channels or spaces to seek feedback from citizens/enable participation/ inform or influence decisions; create or improve capabilities in the government or the public aimed to improve how the government seeks feedback from citizens/enables participation/ or allows for the public to inform or influence decisions?

Yes

Degree of result:

Major

Explanation: In narrative form, what has been the impact on people or practice.

During the monitoring process it was suggested to the Open Government Department to adopt an evaluation tool in the form of a Survey to be conducted at the end of each presentation/course. This was adopted and is now part of the process of the municipality regarding citizen feedback.

Moreover, the workshops conducted by PNUD consultancy provided important opportunities to seek feedback from citizens about open government and citizen participation.

Provide evidence for your answer:

• Participants’ Form- Osasco Public Budget Workshops
• Form for City Hall Representatives- Osasco Public Budget Workshop

2.1.3 Did the government create or improve channels, opportunities or capabilities to hold officials answerable to their actions?

Yes

Degree of result:

Major

Explanation: In narrative form, what has been the impact on people or practice.

During the presentation/course a dialogic relation develops between citizens and public servants, allowing the possibility to explain to civil society about how government works, the challenges and potentialities of public administration as well as the process of the budgetary law and resource allocation in different areas (health, education, environment, mobility, among others). I
n this sense this space becomes an opportunity of a qualified and profound dialogue with citizens.
Moreover, the use of a survey to evaluate public servants at the end of presentation/course is a mechanism for holding hold officials answerable to their actions.

Provide evidence for your answer:

• Collection of evidences
• Form for City Hall Representatives- Osasco Public Budget Workshop

2.1.4 Other Results

Not Applicable

2.2 Did the commitment address the public policy problem that it intended to address as described in the action plan?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The commitment addressed the public policy problem intended and set the base for future steps regarding civic/political education with well detailed, with clear objectives and goals projects for citizen education and for multiplier agents. The implementation of these two projects in an 2nd Action Plan would be of great relevanceAccording to the OGP Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should include a clear open government lens. Specifically, they should advance at least one of the OGP values: transparency, citizen partic.... Considering the size of a city like Osasco, finding mechanisms to disseminate this training through institutional partnerships and multipliers is vital (example: City Hall departments, such as the Education, Social Assistance, and Administration departments, among others, as well as with the City Controller’s Office, State Schools, NGOs, among others).

Provide evidence for your answer:

Collection of evidences

3. Provide at least one lesson or reflection relating to the implementation of this commitment. It can be the identification of key barriers to implementation, an unexpected help/hindrance, recommendations for future commitments, or if the commitment should be taken forward to the next action plan.

The use of games in educational contexts, also known as gamification, is a strategy that is growing in the education of young people and adults because it makes learning more engaging and fun. Secretariats, and other partnerships that will be needed to put it into practice and it is important to seek developing courses and training with materials available on the Transparency Portal, Participa Osasco and social media, that allow for a combination of hybrid, face-to-face, and virtual teaching to guarantee greater participation. It is worth exploring digital tools in this process to gain scale, prioritizing the use of accessible and citizen-friendly language.

Training in its most varied strategies, whether directly or through training multipliers who carry out this work, should be decentralized throughout Osasco territory to reach the population that needs it most and has limited time and resources for mobility.

Additionally, the participation of the Civil Society Forum would be important in this process.