Trust and satisfaction with public services

Trust in public institutions and satisfaction with public services are important yardsticks of the quality of public governance. They reflect people’s perceptions of government competence in designing and delivering policies and services, and expectations on the behaviour of public institutions and their representatives. Although high trust in public institutions is not a necessary outcome of democratic governance, trust and satisfaction with public services facilitate effective governance, as they correlate with high rates of compliance with policies, participation in public life and social cohesion.

A large majority in Colombia are satisfied with the education system, although satisfaction with public services in Colombia is below the OECD average. An estimated 63% of Colombians are satisfied with the education system, just 4 percentage points below the OECD average (67%). Satisfaction with the healthcare and administrative services is 41% and 44%, respectively. Only 28% of Colombians report being satisfied with the judiciary, almost 30 percentage points lower than on average across OECD countries (56%).

Colombia fares below the OECD average on trust in public institutions. Only 21% of Colombians reported high or moderately high trust in the national government, 22% in local government and 20% in the civil service. Around one in ten people in Colombia indicated high or moderately high trust in the parliament (11%).

 Achieving results with good governance practices 

In an age of multiple crises, governments need to adopt more advanced practices to build trust in public institutions and enhance democratic resilience. Actions include building on democratic strengths, such as enhancing citizen and stakeholder engagement in decision making; reinforcing key competences to handle crises, such as budgeting and public financial management processes to address the green and digital transitions; and protecting against threats to democratic values, such as maintaining effective public integrity rules and promoting ethical use of artificial intelligence.

Citizen and stakeholder engagement in decision making helps to improve the design, implementation, and public acceptance of policies, infrastructure and services. The OECD Infrastructure Governance Index (IGI) on stakeholder participation provides an overview of countries’ performance in developing national guidance for stakeholder engagement, promoting their effective participation, and ensuring stakeholder oversight over infrastructure projects.

Colombia is the second best performer on the IGI index on stakeholder participation. It scores 0.77, compared to the average value 0.52 across OECD countries (1 is the maximum possible score, meaning full application of IGI on stakeholder participation). The Colombian score is above the OECD average in every dimension of the index. In particular, Colombia has well-developed policies for stakeholder oversight, with a score of 0.29 out of a maximum value of 0.33.

Budgeting management processes, such as green budgeting, can help address the climate crisis and achieve environmental goals. While there has been a rapid increase in the number of countries implementing green budgeting mechanisms, these could be used more effectively. Green budgeting mechanisms include institutional arrangements to assess the environmental impacts of budgetary and fiscal policies, methods for evaluating their consistency, mechanisms to enhance transparency and accountability, and an enabling budgetary governance framework.

Colombia performs below the average across OECD countries in green budgeting with a score of 0.36, on a 0-1 scale. However, Colombia has strong institutional arrangements for green budgeting - 0.19 compared to 0.15 on average across OECD countries. There is room for improvement in methods and tools, accountability and transparency, and enabling environment.

Strengthening information integrity has become particularly complex in the digital age. While digitalisation and artificial intelligence (AI) provide enormous opportunities, including in expanding and protecting the exercise of some democratic rights and freedoms, their use also brings challenges for governments such as ensuring that they enhance people’s willingness and ability to engage constructively in democratic life and that they benefit society as a whole.

Colombia has introduced laws and regulations (formal requirements), to ensure the ethical management and use of algorithms for AI by public institutions.

 What resources public institutions use and how they are managed 

After stark deterioration due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which required emergency measures and direct support mechanisms to business and people, public finances show positive signs, but the recovery remains fragile. The fiscal balance is the difference between a government’s revenues and its expenditures in a year. When the government spends more than it collects, it has a fiscal deficit. When it spends less, it has a fiscal surplus.

In 2021, Colombia had a fiscal deficit of -7.8% of GDP, similar to the average of -7.5% across OECD countries. In 2019 public debt in Colombia was 63.1% of GDP, significantly below the OECD average in 2019 (106.8%).

Public investment can enhance productivity and economic growth and help implement long-term policies, such as green energy infrastructure to support action on climate change. In turn, governments procure large amounts of goods, services and works to help them implement policies and deliver public services.

In 2021, Colombia spent 10.4% of GDP on procurement, which is slightly below the OECD average (12.9%). Colombia's investment spendings as share of GDP in 2021 (2.3%) was lower than the OECD average (3.4%).

Governments use different mechanisms to harness and develop the capacity of their workforce. For example, internal mobility in public administrations helps to pool human resources across government and attract and retain civil servants.

In Colombia, as in most OECD countries, internal mobility for civil servants is possible but not encouraged or expected. In addition, internal mobility for senior-level civil servants is also possible, although it is not encouraged or expected. Colombia has implemented the practice of developing learning plans for most public employees.

Equal representation of women and men in the public sector is a key indicator of progress towards gender equality, diversity and better representation. In 2020, a majority of employees in the public sector in OECD countries were women (58.9%), with large differences among countries. However, women are often under-represented in managerial positions.

With 50% women in ministerial position, Colombia has achieved gender parity, above 36% on average across OECD countries.

Young people are under-represented in public and political life across the OECD, with the risk that their voice and interests are not sufficiently taken in consideration in policymaking.

The average age of Colombian cabinet members is 55 years, which is 2 years older than the OECD average (53 years).