Action plan – Corrientes (City), Argentina, 2022 – 2025

At-a-Glance

Duration

Dec 2025

Date Submitted

25th November 2022

Foreword(s)

The Municipality of Corrientes has been elected by the Local 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 (OGP) as a new member in May 2022. This meant a milestone for the city and a recognition by experts to our trajectory since we have been working within the framework of an Open Government to be a smart city over more than four years.

This document reflects the vision that we have about how to co-manage with other society sectors, where 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 and accountability are essential to continue the actions that will place Corrientes definitely as a Sustainable City. It is extremely important for us to promote this scheme of work to keep going in this direction.

Actions against climate change are State policies in the whole world, where the cities generate 70% of greenhouse gases according to UN reports. It is because of that, we consider that the solutions to this challenge must start from local schemes.

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?

The long-term vision is to be at the forefront, spread the Open Government paradigm to the entire jurisdiction, both externally and internally to the Municipality. To position the city of Corrientes as a regional benchmark for good practices, in accountability, 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 and participation.

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

Corrientes has a record for more than four years about the Open Government. To mention some of the main achievements that are still current:

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... Portal, which makes available the Municipality data, and involves other public local areas, and actors of the society in the utilization, processing and co-creation solutions, generating added value from them.

Course of Digital Innovation has the purpose of reducing the digital gap in the use and appropriation of new technologies, and seeks to motivate the citizens so they can get new tools that are useful for the development of their personal and professional skills.

Mitá, YouthRecognizing that investing in youth means investing in a better future, OGP participating governments are creating meaningful opportunities for youth to participate in government processes. Technical ... for the environment: This program tries to connect youths of Corrientes’s high schools, creating innovative solutions about themes that involve a positive impact in the community, through a competition which requires the development of projects.

Open State Conferences – Driving Smart Cities: This event is developed during the Open Government Week of the OGP, where we seek to broaden the vision on the implications of an open state, not just focusing on the fundamental pillars, but also approaching cross-cutting issues to the schedule of the civil society.

Correntinian Agreement 2030:  It included the Municipality’s vision of the city for the next ten years. For this purpose, six discussion sessions were realized by priority thematic axes, where the Municipality could explain its contributions and open the dialogue with the citizens.

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

A fundamental part of the strategic vision of municipal management seeks to attend mainly the active Citizen Participation, where key stakeholders are part of the decision and the implementation of the 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.... It seeks to inspire greater confidence in the government sector, strengthening transparency, accountability and Open Data Governance.

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

The medium-term purpose is to approach appropriate data management and openness, involving its publication, internal use and external use by citizens, implementation of technological solutions and improvement of decision-making capabilities by state agents and citizens. This includes both active and passive transparency by improving Access to Public Information processes.

Permanently update and improve participatory strategies to achieve greater citizen representation. Open new channels of participation using technology as a way and strengthen the digital skills of the community.

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

The Action Plan seeks to provide citizens with knowledge on the development of participatory public policies, inviting them to play a leading role in making decisions that have an impact on the community. Looking to achieve one of the priority axes of being a Sustainable City and committed to carry out actions against climate change.

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... of the first commitment promotes the plurality of collaboration, with the municipality playing the role of a constant intermediary together with other civil society actors.

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

It contributes to consolidate Corrientes as a city with the following characteristics:

Friendly with its inhabitants and visitors; where there are spaces for integration, betting on the quality of life of all residents.

Modern, transforming Corrientes into an innovative city, incorporating a new way of managing the public and private sectors through new technologies and methodologies, seeking proximity and rapprochement with the citizen, in which transparency and participation of all stakeholders is a priority, promoting the transfer of knowledge.

Sustainable, that allows the full development of everybody without compromising future generations, improving the management of resources and the bond with nature.

To generate development opportunities by positioning itself as the main city in the region, taking advantage of its strategic geo-location and growth potential as a city of qualified services.

In addition, a city where the values of teamwork, closeness, dialogue, innovation, credibility and transparency are deepened.

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.

• Secretaría de Coordinación de Gobierno
• Subsecretaría de Modernización, Innovación y Tecnología
• Dirección General de Innovación Pública y Gobierno Abierto
• Secretaría de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sustentable
• Subsecretaría de Planificación Ambiental
• Red de Innovación Local – RIL

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

The existing institutional arrangements are framed in a commitment of the public management, planned for the city in 2021 and budgeted for 2023. The City Reforestation and Nursery Strengthening Plans were approved and reviewed by the Secretariat for Finance since it already has an internal planning by the Environment area and were incorporated into the Program Budget of the Municipality, approved by the Honorable Concejo Deliberante (City Council)

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.

Co-creation processes were carried out in person and online participatory instances. In the first instance, working groups were held, with which a broad network of citizen participation of organizations, institutions and representatives of the city’s neighbours was obtained, and from which drafts of commitments emerged.

In addition, an online form was created through the Typeform platform. This was used for the evaluation of the pre-selected commitments obtained at the Mesas de Co-creación (roundtables) and from which the winning commitment for the First Action Plan emerged.

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

We have a register of all the organizations in the city that were invited to the co-creation roundtables. The profiles of these actors were diverse, ranging from representatives of business chambers, organizations of people with disabilitiesA government is not open unless it is accessible to all, and governments are working to ensure people with disabilities are afforded equitable services and opportunities to participate. Technical spec..., the academic sector, entrepreneurs and environmental volunteers. In this way we ensured plurality, in addition we had focused on CSOs working on environmental issues.

In order to achieve adhesion, an arduous task of dissemination was carried out, using the database obtained throughout these years, using social networks, traditional media and dissemination tasks in cultural events carried out by the municipality.

This allowed to obtain a widely favorable result in the participation of the co-creation tables, as a first participatory instance and then, for the assessment of the final commitment.

We defined a sample of 385 respondents and it was widely surpassed, obtaining more than 1000 answers and reaching 103 different neighborhoods of the city (78%).

Who participated in these spaces?

1 – Civil society organizations:

• Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales y Políticas – Universidad Nacional del Nordeste
• CEDEMEC (Cámara Mujeres Empresarias de Corrientes)
• Rotary Club
• Fundación ‘Marandé’
• Instituto Correntino del Agua y del Ambiente
• Asociación ‘Red Vecinal Zona Norte’
• Consejo Profesional de la Ingeniería, Arquitectura y Agrimensura de la Provincia de Corrientes
• Asociación civil ‘Sembrando Sueños Rio Paraná’
• Fundación ‘Estrellas Amarillas Corrientes’
• Fundación ‘Taragui’
• Fundación ‘Buen vivir’
• Delegación del barrio Santa María
• Asociación ‘Vecinos del Barrio Yapeyú por una Ciudad Mejor’

2 – Public sector:

• Subsecretaría de PyMEs y Emprendedores,
• Departamento de Concientización Ciudadana del Municipio.

3 – Neighbours

How many groups participated in these spaces?

16

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

2

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

The proposed commitment with its respective milestones requires an extensive collaboration process, so it has been proposed to generate spaces for exchanges with citizens, such as participatory workshops, awareness-raising instances, informative meetings to report progress. Thus allowing the approach of expression by residents, organizations and institutions on the actions carried out.

The Open Government co-creation roundtables will continue to operate until the end of the current administration, not only monitoring the implementation of this plan but also incorporating other issues that were not included in the commitments.

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

Fundación Integrarnos

Provide the contact details for the independent monitoring body.

Marcelo Velázquez, Chief Coordinator
Email: Marcelo.s.velazquez@gmail.com

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

The activities established to discuss and publicize the progress of the commitments are:

• Reporting by email from all instances to those stakeholders who indicated interest in receiving information on the plan and next steps and also to the mapped CSOs.
• Quarterly informative meetings with key stakeholders.
• Publications in institutional communication platforms of the municipality and RIL.
• Publication in the Data Portal of the City of Corrientes.
• The office of the General Directorate of Public Innovation and Open Government (Dirección General de Innovación Pública y Gobierno Abierto) is available to receive suggestions and answer questions about the Action Plan, its co-creation and implementation process.

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

The General Directorate of Public Innovation and Open Government (Dirección General de Innovación Pública y Gobierno Abierto) has the role of supervising the work with the areas articulated to the commitment, holding work meetings, facilitating the periodicity to carry out the evaluations of the milestones for the commitment.

In addition, there will be a follow-up, with the role of viewer in the respective projects in an internal platform called Proyectar, where the progress of goals and milestones of the projects related to the First Open Government Action Plan are reflected.

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

The results will be published on the official website of the Municipality, on different social networks and will be reported in municipal events. The municipality’s Open Data platform will also be used to dump the inventories and records in a csv format available to reuse.

Besides, the results are going to be reported by email from all instances to those stakeholders who indicated interest in receiving information on the plan and next steps and also to the mapped CSOs.

Endorsement from Non-Governmental Stakeholders

• Paula Salvay, City coach, Red de Innovación Local
• Gallipoliti Virginia Angelina, member, Cámara Mujeres Empresarias de Corrientes
• Benitez de Ognio Maricel Mirian, member, Cámara Mujeres Empresarias de Corrientes
• Ricardo Moriena, President, Rotary Club
• Gladis Melgarejo de Collantes, member, Asociación ‘Red Vecinal Zona Norte’
• Murcia María Emilia, President of the Department of Urbanism, Consejo Profesional de la Ingeniería, Arquitectura y Agrimensura de la Provincia de Corrientes
• Sánchez Stella Maris Soledad, President, Asociación civil ‘Sembrando Sueños Rio Paraná’
• Soto Ortiz Graciela, President, Fundación ‘Estrellas Amarillas Corrientes’
• Bejarano Pablo, member, Funacion Taragui
• Velozo Carlos Alberto, member, Fundacion Buen vivir
• Silva Juan Carlos, Director, Delegacion Santa Maria
• Castañeda Maria Celia, member, Asociación ‘Vecinos del Barrio Yapeyú por una Ciudad Mejor’
• Britez Marta, member, Fundación Buen vivir

Letter from the Mayor Eduardo Tassano
Online Commitment Feedback Form