Democracia Activa

As the national coordinator of the regional Active Democracy project, CIPPEC (Center for the Implementation of Public Policies for Equity and Growth) began with the development of the activities established by the Hemispheric Coordination in January of 2008.

The first activity consisted of defining the members of the expert panel for each of the thematic areas: Access to Public Information, Freedom of Expression, Participation of Civil Society and Decentralization and Local Governments. The description of the methodology and the objectives of the project inspired great interest in all of these areas. This panel includes people who are highly involved in the public issues of our country, and who contribute a perspective from within the civil society. Executive directors of the main non-governmental organizations that participate in the design and monitoring of public policies in each of the four thematic areas of the project participate as experts. This enriches the evaluation of the activities developed by the Argentinean State in order to comply with the mandates of the Quebec and Mar del Plata Summits. This list of governmental activities was created from institutional memos for the years 2006 and 2007 that are published on the web page of the Central Office of the Cabinet of Ministers. In addition, for the “Access to Public Information” area, German Stalker was consulted, who is the coordinator of the Area for the Implementation of Participative Policies in the National Public Administration, which belongs to the Sub-secretariat for Institutional Reform and the Strengthening of Democracy, an organ responsible for applying Decree 1172/03 on Access to Public Information. This consultancy allowed the group to deepen their knowledge on some key matters in order to understand and evaluate the degree of compliance with the mandates of the Summits to which our country subscribed in both Quebec and Mar del Plata.

The interviews with each of the experts were also useful as sources of information for the putting into practice of the dimensions and sub-dimensions established by the Hemispheric Coordination. The validation of observable activities through a numeric classification ended up being an interesting experience for both the national Follow-up Strategy team and the experts consulted. This “quantitative” evaluation exercise –like every time that a new instrument is used- produced some rejection at the moment of presenting the methodology. For many of the experts who were consulted, it was not a simple matter to establish a given number. They believed that such a number or classification would not allow for a description of certain situations and circumstances related to each of the activities for the established thematic areas. Many of them held that, “With a number there are no nuances.” However, thanks to a joint work session they were able to “translate” more qualitative evaluations into a quantitative one that would allow for the construction of the Evaluation of Government Compliance Index (EGCI).

Even though national Government representatives were consulted on the Access to Public Information area, the Argentinean Chancellery has still not validated the activities. This stage makes up the next challenge. However, CIPPEC, as the national coordinator, has already taken the first step so that Argentina would be able to be classified and evaluated using the EGCI.