Peru Results Report 2019-2022

Peru’s fourth 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... has a moderate level of completionImplementers must follow through on their commitments for them to achieve impact. For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlin... of its commitments. Most have not achieved early open government results while only 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... 8 has shown outstanding changes. After several years of absence, Peru has implemented its first multi-stakeholder forumRegular dialogue between government and civil society is a core element of OGP participation. It builds trust, promotes joint problem-solving, and empowers civil society to influence the design, imple... since 2020. Efforts to further engage civil society in commitment implementation and to improve the OGP repositoryAccess to relevant information is essential for enabling participation and ensuring accountability throughout the OGP process. An OGP repository is an online centralized website, webpage, platform or ... are recommended.

Early ResultsEarly results refer to concrete changes in government practice related to transparency, citizen participation, and/or public accountability as a result of a commitment’s implementation. OGP’s Inde...

Peru’s fourth action plan had 21 commitments, which included activities of various ministries and constitutionally autonomous bodies, on issues such as health, interior, regulatory quality, environment, Public contracting, among others.

Three commitments were identified as promising in the Action Plan Review, and one achieved outstanding results (Commitment 8 on the Identicole portal of the Ministry of 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 ...). Among the other commitments, eight have obtained marginal results in opening the government, and 12 do not present evidence of results. This represents a slight setback compared to the implementation of the previous plan, when Peru obtained three of 18 commitments with significant government opening.

The main early results come from Commitment 8. Remarkably it met the OGP “accountability” value during implementation, while ensuring more publicly accessible information to citizens, particularly vulnerable people. The commitments that did not achieve results had two types of problems: a significant number of them had limited implementation, were not started, or on which there is no evidence (11 in total); and some were classified with low ambition as outlined in the Design Report published in 2020[1]. Two commitments initially identified as promising (commitments 1 and 18) finally did not achieve results in the opening of the government due to the lack of activities specifically linked to promoting OGP values.

Completion

Regarding the previous action plan implementation, there is a slight setback in completion. Compared to 12 of 18 commitments completed or substantially completed in the previous plan, the fourth plan presents 9 of 21 commitments completed or substantially completed. The greatest advances were in the justiceTo address barriers that prevent citizens from having their justice needs met, OGP participating governments are working to expand transparency, accountability, and inclusion into all systems of justi..., public procurementTransparency in the procurement process can help combat corruption and waste that plagues a significant portion of public procurement budgets globally. Technical specifications: Commitments that aim t... and education areas. In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2021 general electionsImproving transparency in elections and maintaining the independence of electoral commissions is vital for promoting trust in the electoral system, preventing electoral fraud, and upholding the democr..., the change of government (and officials) in July of that year, and the subsequent political and institutional instability in the 2021-2022 period slowed down the implementation of the commitments. Among the promising commitments, two out three were completed.

Participation and Co-Creation

The Undersecretariat for Public Administration of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers continues to lead the OGP process. As a result of the creation of the Open Government Multi-Stakeholder Forum on December 30, 2019 the overall quality of participation improved significantly compared to the previous OGP cycle. This forum has been meeting since 2020 (although since 2021 the number of meetings and members that actually participate have been reduced) through gatherings between its members and the implementing agencies of the fourth plan. However, civil society points out that the meetings are not yet conducive to joint decision-making. They are exclusively focused on listening to the presentations of the ministries and providing general feedback, which did not lead to changes during the implementation process[2]. The government recognizes this as a challenge to improve for the next cycles of Peru’s participation in OGP[3].

Implementation in Context

As noted above, the context for the implementation of the action plan was hampered by the change of government in 2021 and political instability. Thus, there has been a significant turnover of officials (particularly the implementers of the commitments in sectors such as Interior and Health), due to which there have been delays and non-compliance in a significant number of activities.

Likewise, the pandemic meant a change of priorities in all the implementing agencies (which led the government to take advantage of the extension of deadlines offered by OGP in 2020), although the vast majority of the commitments have followed the activities originally planned in 2019. The meetings of the multi-stakeholder forum could be held through virtual means without inconveniences.

[1]https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Peru_Design_Report_2019-2021.pdf

[2] Interviews with Pámela Ramírez (SPDA), Verónica Portugal (DAR), Mela Salazar (Vigilia Ciudadana) and Elsa Galarza (Universidad del Pacífico).

[3] Interview with =Sebastián Rivera, government point of contact for the OGP-Perú process.