Sao Paulo Design Report 2018-2020

The co-creation of São Paulo’s second 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... was characterized by an increase in civic participation, compared to the first plan. However, after the plan’s milestones were revised, there was a decrease in the potential impact of two of its five commitments. As a whole, São Paulo’s action plan represents an important step towards the consolidation of an open government agenda with incremental advancements. Given the action plan was the result of a broader effort to involve civil society organizations, it will be key to follow how civic engagement evolves during the plan’s implementation.

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) a global partnership that brings together government reformers and civil society leaders to create action plans that make governments more inclusive, responsive, and accountable. 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 all action plans to ensure governments follow through on commitments. São Paulo joined OGP in 2016. Since, São Paulo has implemented one action plan. This report evaluates the design of São Paulo’s second action plan.

General overview of action plan

This São Paulo’s second action plan since open government policies started being implemented in the city at the end of 2012. With the creation of a dedicated agency for open government efforts and the implementation 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 initiatives, the city has experienced incremental institutional improvements since. The first action plan was a tool to consolidate some of these initiatives, and the current one include new efforts to continue addressing governance challenges.

The key improvement on the design of this action plan is its significant increase on civil involvement, with both remote and live participation. This is a good practice that should be continued and improved moving forward. Also noteworthy is that public service deliveryTo ensure that citizens of all groups are better supported by the government, OGP participating governments are working to improve the quality of and access to public services. Commitments in this are... commitments, such as 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... on 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 ..., were included for the first time. However, the potential impact of the commitments in general were minor or moderate, a result from a revision of the commitments of the plan that made them less ambitious.

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 current plan, with improved participatory activities, yielded commitments more pertinent to citizens demands and their perception of government challenges.  In the current action plan, more stakeholders from civil society organizations were included in the co-creation process and the public consultation procedure was enhanced, generating more contributions from the citizens and wider range of inputs from civil society organizations. However, the process could be strengthened by better incorporating civil society inputs when selecting and drafting the final 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