Paraguay has placed the open government principles of transparency, accountability and stakeholder participation high on its political agenda. In fact, these principles constitute a cross-cutting axis underpinning the National Development Plan. In line with the NDP’s objective to raise the country’s international profile, Paraguay has also made strategic use of its open government agenda to enhance its international profile.
A solid enabling environment for Open Government is an essential and necessary pre-condition for the successful implementation of open government strategies and initiatives in any country. OECD evidence points to the importance for countries to have a clear definition of open government in place in order to guide a country’s approach to the implementation of open government reforms. The OECD Recommendation of the Council on Open Government further highlights the importance for countries to develop an open government strategy with all stakeholders and points to the crucial necessity for countries to adopt a robust legal and regulatory framework for Open Government to flourish.
Paraguay has started making use of the vision for Open Government that is outlined by the OGP in recent years. For instance, the country’s third OGP Action Plans states that “Open Government is a form of relationship between public power and citizenship; based on the participation and permanent collaboration of its members in the exercise of citizen rights and the compliance with obligations”.
While the inclusion of this vision in the third OGP Action Plan is an important step forward, by OECD standards, a government’s vision for Open Government does not represent a single definition. More efforts are needed to make sure that all stakeholders develop a common understanding of Open Government. The government of Paraguay could therefore consider developing a single national definition that is tailored to the national context together with all stakeholders. The National Open Government Roundtable (Mesa Conjunta de Gobierno Abierto, the “OG Roundtable”) or the Parliamentary Commission on Open Government could provide a useful forum for the development of such a definition.
Paraguay joined the Open Government Partnership in 2011. Since then, the country has elaborated three Action Plans and is currently in the process of elaborating its fourth plan. These National Action Plan (NAP) processes have contributed to raising the profile of open government initiatives in the country and have allowed the government to make new connections with external stakeholders and the organised civil society. Moreover, the OGP process in Paraguay has contributed to the achievement of an important number of immediate and high-level policy objectives related to the promotion of transparency, accountability and stakeholder participation, such as the implementation of legislation on Access to Information (ATI).
While the NAPs have allowed Paraguay to make important progress in certain open government areas, given their biannual nature (which, in many cases, is not aligned with the government’s policy cycle) and their focus on more short-term policy issues, NAPs do not constitute a comprehensive National Open Government Strategy and should be complemented with OG provisions in other policy documents, including National Development Plans (as in the case of Paraguay). A National Open Government Strategy can provide the missing link between high-level commitments and short-term delivery-oriented commitments included in the biannual OGP Action Plans.
The implementation of OG strategies and initiatives should be a means to an end: OECD experience shows that open government policies can actually be a valuable tool to contribute to the achievement of broader policy objectives, including fostering trust in public institutions and more inclusive economic development. Therefore, it is recommended for countries to make the link between their open government agendas and broader national development objectives. In this connection the Government of Paraguay has made important efforts to align the NAP with the NDP. The government should continue along these lines by ensuring that the fourth OGP Action Plan, which it is currently designing, is also fully linked to the objectives of the National Development Plan.
A single National Open Government Strategy (NOGS) can provide the missing link between high-level commitments (such as the ones in the NDP) and short-term delivery-oriented commitments included in the biannual OGP Action Plans. The development and implementation of a NOGS can also streamline those existing initiatives in areas of relevance to OG principles that are not reflected in the OGP Action Plan.
If Paraguay decides to develop a NOGS, it should be co-created through a participatory methodology like the one that is currently being used in the development of the OGP Action Plans. The government could also consider including additional actors such as the legislative and judicial branches in the co-creation in order to support the ongoing move towards an open state (see below). The STP as the co-ordinating entity of the National Open Government Roundtable could take the lead in the development of the NOGS which could take place in the framework of the National Open Government Roundtable or the Parliament’s Open Government Commission.
A law regulating access to public information is the cornerstone of any country’s enabling environment for open government. To date, all OECD countries and most LAC countries have an access to information legislation in place. In 2014, after a lengthy process, Paraguay’s Congress adopted the country’s first access to information law (two pieces of legislation, in fact).
One weakness of the law is that it does not create a formal guarantor for its implementation, as is the case in other countries such as in Mexico and Chile. It only establishes the Ministry of Justice as the co-ordinator of its implementation. The Ministry of Justice does not, however, have formal enforcement powers and is understaffed, which may hinder its capacity to follow-up on requests. More human and financial resources for the office of the Ministry of Justice responsible for the implementation of the law should be foreseen. In addition the government could identify more ways to incentivise compliance since sanctions are not an option under the legislation.
A solid legal framework for Open Government can guarantee continuity of efforts from one government to another and hence provide implementation stability. Paraguay could therefore make efforts to complement its legal and regulatory framework for Open Government over the next years. The inclusion of relevant commitments in the fourth OGP Action Plan could provide the necessary impetus for these efforts.
There are currently several legal provisions that foresee stakeholder engagement in policy processes in Paraguay such as mandatory public hearings and participatory budgeting processes. However, the lack of a unified legislation that promotes stakeholder participation prevents it from becoming a mainstreamed practice and makes it difficult for citizens to understand where and when they can participate. Paraguay could learn from the positive experience with co-creation made in the OGP process and engage stakeholders more actively in the development, implementation and monitoring and evaluation of policies. Adopting a law on participation, as done by Colombia, or creating an overarching document on stakeholder participation, could help Paraguay in this endeavour.
The implementation of open government policies requires vision and leadership, as well as the capacity to effectively and efficiently co-ordinate, tasks that according to OECD experience are best taken over by an institution located in a country’s Centre-of-Government. The CoG can facilitate the link between open government objectives with the broader national ones by connecting open government principles, strategies and initiatives across government (including different sectors and different levels of government) and with non-state actors in order to foster a shared vision on open government agenda. It can also promote visibility across the government and towards citizens of existing good practices in the area of open government, as well as institutional champions. The CoG can strengthen the strategic use of performance data across the public sector in order to support the monitoring and evaluation of the impact of open government strategies and initiatives.
This is the case in Paraguay, where the open government agenda is co-ordinated by the STP, which has been driving the national OGP process since its beginning. The STP is also the institution responsible for co-ordinating the National Open Government Roundtable, the “Mesa Conjunta de Gobierno Abierto”, for developing, co-ordinating the implementation, monitoring and communicating the OGP Action Plans, as well as for promoting open government principles in the country. However, the STP does not assign resources for the implementation of open government initiatives and it does not evaluate impact, except for the self-assessment done in the framework of the OGP that includes an evaluation on processes and outputs of the OGP commitments.
In addition, as mentioned above, the co-ordination of Local Development Plans (both departmental and municipal) and of the NDP is also ensured by the STP, an important and highly strategic competence that puts it in an ideal position to link the country’s OG agenda with the wider development agenda.
In Paraguay, the Joint Open Government Roundtable (Mesa Conjunta de Gobierno Abierto) is the main co-ordination entity of the OGP process and includes a wide variety of public institutions from the public sector as well as civil society. The important number of public institutions and of civil society organisations is a great opportunity to ensure inclusiveness but, if not well managed, can also create a co-ordination challenge and hinder the Roundtable’s effectiveness. The government could consider selecting a number of key public institutions that represent the government’s position in the Committee and, one the other hand, letting civil society organisations select a smaller number of organisations to represent them in the Committee. A smaller number of present organisations would allow for Committee meetings to take place in a more participatory manner and to take more management decisions.
Paraguay could also consider extending the Roundtable’s responsibilities to the broader open government agenda of the country and to transform it into a real Open Government Steering Committee that meets more regularly and takes management decisions, as for instance done in Tunisia where the Committee is composed of five government institutions and five civil society organisations and meets monthly.
In addition to hiring or assigning staff that is especially dedicated to Ministries’ open government agendas (beyond the OGP process), further efforts are needed to embed an open government culture in the public service. For the time being, there are no specific open government requirements in terms of skills for civil servants in Paraguay. Except for some training on the implementation of the access to information law, new employees of the state do not receive open government training, and human resources management policies (such as recruitment etc.) are not used to promote open government nor include open government related skills in their competencies frameworks.
The government could consider collaborating with INAPP, its National Institute for Public Administration (Instituto Nacional de Administracion Publica de Paraguay, inter alia Paraguay’s main continuous training provider for civil servants, or a national university, to design an open government curriculum for interested students and/or civil servants, as for instance done by Chile.
The SFP as the driver of the civil service reform in Paraguay and is one of the STP’s most important partners in the promotion of Open Government though HRM. Paraguay could involve the SFP even more actively in the open government agenda, and could also consider including HRM elements in its fourth OGP Action Plan.
As highlighted in previous sections, monitoring and evaluation systems are indispensable to ensure that public policies achieve their goals and to enable government to adjust course if results are not being achieved properly. In the specific context of Open Government, monitoring and evaluation mechanisms are all the more important, as data availability, communication of impacts and their evaluation from stakeholders, the so-called “feedback loop”, lay at the heart of the open government principles. Hence, monitoring and evaluation should be an essential element of the policy process, yet it is still done in a limited way in most countries, including in Paraguay.
A successful open government agenda cannot be implemented without efforts to disseminate achievements/challenges as well as the benefits of the implementation of open government initiatives to all key stakeholders inside and outside of government.
The STP has made important efforts to enhance the communication of its open government efforts to the wider public.
For many years, the global open government movement has focused its attention mainly on strategies and initiatives taken by the executive branch of the state. These days, however, countries across the world are increasingly acknowledging that open government initiatives should not be seen as an endeavour solely of the executive branch. Some countries have started mainstreaming open government principles across the three branches of the state, and are moving towards a truly holistic approach to their efforts to foster transparency, integrity, accountability and stakeholder participation which also includes a wide variety of other actors. In recent years, Paraguay has started taking first important steps towards the creation of an Open State. For instance:
Different initiatives to foster open government at local level have been taken;
Congress has its own open parliamentary initiative;
The judiciary has included open government principles in its Institutional Strategic Plan; and
The third OGP Action Plan includes elements related to the participation of independent state institutions such as the Comptroller General (Contraloria).