La Libertad Design Report 2018-2020

La Libertad’s 2018-2020 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... presents an opportunity to improve 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 in the region via the platform “Decide La Libertad”. Citizens provided inputs during 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 action plan, but the government did not publish a reasoned responseOngoing dialogue between stakeholders during the development of an OGP action plan is critical to the plan’s success. Specifically, communicating back to stakeholders the ideas received and decision... to public and civil society contributions. Moving forward, La Libertad could strengthen citizen participation and increase the commitment’s ambitionAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should “stretch government practice beyond its current baseline with respect to key areas of open government.” Ambition captures the po... level.

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 (OGP) is a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to co-create action plans to make more inclusive, receptive, and accountable governments. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... monitors each action plan to ensure that governments follow through on their commitments. La Libertad joined OGP in 2016 and has since implemented one action plan. This report assesses the design of La Libertad’s second action plan.

Overview of the action plan

La Libertad submitted its second action plan in December 2018, just before the new administration took office. La Libertad’s current action plan has a significantly different approach as compared to the action plan implemented in the pilot phase (2016-2018). The new plan moves away from the sectorial emphasis in the co-creation of commitments (these were previously created by government sectors – such as agriculture or laborTransparent workforce data and increased representation of workers in labor policy-making lead to policies that better protect workers’ rights and remove barriers for underrepresented groups in the ... – together with relevant civil society organizations) towards a cross-cutting approach to incorporating OGP values in at least five of the six commitments. This action plan’s focus is to strengthen the region’s civic space in terms of informative, participatory and accountability mechanisms, as well as civil society’s capacities to use such mechanisms. However, given their weak link to specific policy areas, the potential impact of certain commitments is not ambitious enough to be transformative.

The leadership of the action plan was taken on by the multi-stakeholder forum “Regional Open Government Council” (CRGA in Spanish). Unlike the pilot phase, the CRGA will implement a 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... monitoring mechanism.

However, according to the mandate of the CRGA, the Planning Deputy Management Office of the Regional Government of La Libertad (GRLL in Spanish) is in charge of designing action plans with support from other state agencies and civil society organizations. The empowerment of the Planning Deputy Management Office within the CRGA for this plan has had a positive impact on aligning the action plan to OGP values. Yet, citizen and civil society participation has been limited and the commitments have not been ambitious enough to be transformative.

In terms of the design of the current action plan, stakeholders that are not a part of the forum had the opportunity to observe, present recommendations and influence the decision-making process in two co-creation workshops, six meetings of the sectorial advisory councils and one session led by the Regional Coordination Council. However, the government did not widely broadcast these sessions and the number of citizens that participated in them was very limited. There was also not a clear link between commitment creation and prioritization process or a public feedback mechanism. The process appears to have been highly influenced by the Planning Deputy Management’s priorities. Thus, the IRM researcher assigned the “consult” rank to the design process, using the IAP2 spectrum. With regards to civil society within CRGA, the process reached the “involve” level, meaning the government did clarify how the public comments were addressed.

The action plan includes six commitments, five of which are relevant to OGP values. These are all linked – to different extents – to the online platform “Decide La Libertad”, which was set in place in 2018 by the regional government as a digital participationMany governments are creating online mechanisms for citizens to petition, call for action, and participate in making decisions on issues they care about.  Technical specifications: Refers to public p... space. Two commitments have transformative potential impact, one has moderate, and three have minor potential impact. For future action plans, the IRM researcher recommends that commitments linked to the platform Decide La Libertad are cut down to one or two ambitious commitments.

Table 2. Noteworthy commitments

Recommendations

The IRM recommendations aim to inform the development of the next action plan and guide implementation of the current action plan.

Table 3. Five key IRM recommendations