This study provides a critical literature review of the theory and quantitative evidence of the impact of regulatory policy. The theory is addressed through a causal chain analysis which connects regulatory policy through the “better regulation” agenda to economic outcomes. The literature review is intended to provide a reasonably representative sample of studies on regulatory policy and governance in general; administrative simplification and reducing regulatory burdens; ex ante and ex post analyses of regulations; consultation, transparency and accountability; and regulatory institutions. The main policy lessons are highlighted, alongside discussion of the limitations of the literature in terms of content and coverage.

Este documento presenta el informe final del proceso de adaptación del Objetivo de Desarrollo Sostenible 16 “Paz, justicia e instituciones sólidas” (ODS 16) en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (CABA). El Gobierno de la Ciudad se ha propuesto acompañar la Agenda 2030 de Desarrollo Sostenible a través de la incorporación, y el monitoreo, de dicha agenda en sus estrategias, planes y acciones. En esta etapa, el foco se ha puesto en el ODS 16 y particularmente en las dimensiones referidas al gobierno abierto, uno de los ejes estratégicos de la gestión (metas 16.5, 16.6, 16.7 y 16.10).

The SDGs are important because they set consensus norms. At face value, Goal 10 sets a strong norm on reducing inequality within and between countries. Yet this is undermined and distorted by the targets and indicators which are weak and set an agenda for inclusion rather than for reducing inequalities. This paper explains this paradox as a result of an intense contestation over the framing of the inequality agenda as inclusion, focusing on the poor and excluded, rather than on extreme inequality. The paper provides a detailed account of the negotiations and argues that the insertion of the shared prosperity measure in setting the target on vertical economic inequality (rather than distribution measures such as Gini or Palma ratio) was strategic. It concludes that the political choice over the meaning of a norm is made on what is said to be a technical basis. The technical and political considerations cannot be disentangled and greater transparency on the policy strengths and weaknesses of measurement choices is needed.

In many countries high levels of corruption persist in spite of the adoption of so-called anti- corruption “best practices”. In this paper we make a call to pursue a context-sensitive inquiry into the drivers of corruption in order to substantially improve the practices and effects of anti-corruption. We discuss evidence from case studies in Africa, Central Asia and the Caucasus suggesting that high levels of corruption are associated to a significant discrepancy between formal rules and informal practices. Informal practices of co-optation, control and camouflage are used by political and business elites to safeguard regime survival via a de facto re-distribution of public resources in favour of informal networks of “insiders”. From the perspective of citizens, corrupt acts such as bribing enjoy social acceptability especially when they are effective in solving practical problems and protecting livelihoods. The functional relevance of informal practices clarifies the factors behind the limited effectiveness of anti-corruption law-driven reforms, short-term action plans, and technical measures that focus on particular processes, procedures and institutions. We argue for the need to ponder informality and consider how it may help us develop better anti-corruption strategies. The prevalence and entrenched nature of informal practices indicate their heuristic potential: they can tell us what we are missing in official policies, inform about resistances and can help uncover pathways to strategic, sustainable reforms.

El documento tiene por objeto poner a disposición de cualquier institución del sector público de los tres órdenes de gobierno la guía y las etapas que deben seguir para establecer un Programa de Promoción de la Integridad y Prevención de la Corrupción basado en las mejores prácticas internacionales en la materia, homologado y sistémico con el rigor metodológico necesario para identificar, prevenir, evaluar y disuadir la ocurrencia de posibles actos corruptos, así como para sancionar a los responsables y generar un mejor aprovechamiento de los recursos públicos, promover la transparencia y rendición de cuentas, y alcanzar mayores niveles de eficiencia en el desempeño gubernamental.

Target 16.3 appears to provide a good example of ‘slippage in the level of ambition’ in moving from visionary goals to watered?down targets and indicators, due to the influence of powerful interests – in this case the UNODC. However, the SDG Agenda offers an important corrective measure, by encouraging Member States to ‘domesticate’ individual goals and targets – adapting them to local circumstances. Tunisia provides a vivid illustration of how a national SDG16 monitoring system can drive national accountability and contribute to positive change on the ground – provided indicators have broad?based buy?in and resonate with local grievances and priorities. First, the conceptual scope of the Tunisian Governance Goal was greatly expanded to include a strong focus on participation and human rights. Second the Tunisian SDG16 indicator set is dominated by survey?based indicators thus placing people's voice at the centre of the monitoring system. Third, the regular publication of national SDG16 data in Tunisia has incentivized tangible responses from public officials.

2013 se ha posicionado como el año del gobierno abierto. El progresivo avance de la Alianza para el Gobierno Abierto (Open Government Partnership) supone la consolidación de un proceso que, en menos de dos años, ha logrado contagiar la promesa de promover e implementar políticas públicas fundadas en los principios de la transparencia y del acceso a la información pública, la participación ciudadana, la integridad y un mayor uso de las tecnologías para la apertura y rendición de cuentas en 63 países de todo el mundo. En particular, la región de América Latina y el Caribe se destaca por ser la que tiene la más amplia participación, con 15 países miembros, 14 de los cuales cuentan con planes de acción en proceso de implementación y/o evaluación que recogen sus compromisos de gobierno abierto (Trinidad y Tobago es el próximo país que presentará un plan). A la fecha, algunos países están desarrollando procesos de consulta pública y espacios de participación para formular nuevos compromisos de gobierno abierto para un nuevo período. Por ello, conviene detenerse en analizar la experiencia comparada en la región a partir de la revisión de los compromisos impulsados en los planes de acción y la visión que los propios actores involucrados tienen sobre el proceso. Todo ello como parte de la necesaria reflexión que permita seguir abonando en este territorio emergente que se va configurando como un nuevo paradigma de reforma de la política y de la gestión pública en el siglo XXI.

This paper is based on the conclusions of a workshop entitled ‘Perspectives on Open Government in Latin America’, organised by the Latin America International Affairs Program (LAIAP) of LSE IDEAS on 30 October 2013. Sponsored by the World Bank Group, the OGP’s Civil Society Coordination, the Organisation of American States (OAS), the Government of Peru, the Federal Institute of Access to Public Information of Mexico (Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Información Pública—IFAI) and the Alianza Regional por la Libertad de Expresion e Informacion, the event brought together more than 40 representatives from Latin American national governments, civil society and multilateral organisations with the objective of deepening the understanding of the OGP, its main challenges and opportunities within the regional context. The event was convened by Fabrizio Scrollini, a PhD candidate at the LSE Government Department. This report was co-written by Dr Ursula Durand Ochoa and Fabrizio Scrollini. The analysis is also based on the discussions and debates that took place during the 2013 OGP London Summit.

The World Justice Project (WJP) joins previous efforts to produce reliable data on open government through the WJP Open Government Index™ 2015, a report that measures government openness in practice based on the experiences and perceptions of the general public and in-country experts worldwide. We hope this biennial publication, anchored in actual experiences, will enhance efforts to evaluate the extent to which countries provide official information to their citizens, encourage community involvement, and improve government responsiveness. The WJP Open Government Index 2015 provides scores and rankings on four dimensions of government openness: (1) publicized laws and government data, (2) right to information, (3) civic participation, and (4) complaint mechanisms. These dimensions are intended to reflect how people experience varying degrees of openness in their daily interaction with government officials.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development demands bold action. It will require coordinating policy on multiple fronts, forming new partnerships, and committing significant resources across the globe. It also requires an open and accountable approach to implementation. With government and civil society working together in 66 countries to make governments more open and effective, the Open Government Partnership (OGP) presents a unique opportunity to advance the 2030 Agenda. This special edition of the Open Government Guide focuses on how an open government approach can spur progress across the 17 Goals, including in improving public services and ultimately, in reducing poverty. Many OGP countries are already tackling these challenges by promoting transparency and accountability, empowering citizens and civil society, fighting corruption, and harnessing new technologies in their national action plans, examples of which are showcased here. Also highlighted are illustrative commitments drawn from the Open Government Guide for inclusion in future action plans. We invite government and civil society open government champions around the world to build on these ideas in the coming months with their own suggestions of open government policies that advance the SDGs.

En la actualidad, distintos países en todo el mundo han iniciado un proceso progresivo para promover e impulsar estrategias ligadas al concepto de “gobierno abierto”. Basado en los principios de la transparencia y apertura, participación y colaboración, el gobierno abierto se ha posicionado como un paradigma emergente que intenta responder al agotamiento de los modelos tradicionales de gobernanza en un mundo que esta cambiando radical y vertiginosamente. El artículo realiza una rigurosa aproximación al debate sobre el origen, alcances y perspectivas del concepto, y da cuenta de sus principales elementos constitutivos. Por otro lado, discute la idea de entenderlo como una plataforma para la participación y la colaboración a través de ecosistemas abiertos de datos que favorezcan la co-creación, el co-diseño y la co-gestión de servicios, en un contexto donde la confianza, la coresponsabilidad y el compromiso son elementos clave para el proceso de cambio que experimentan los gobiernos y las administraciones públicas.

The United Nation’s High-Level Report on the Post-2015 Development Agenda called for a “fundamental shift to recognise the significant role of institutions in contributing to citizens’ well-being (HLP, 2013). This message was echoed by the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which put forward a proposal including targets for reducing corruption, promoting transparency, access to information and accountability, as well as ensuring decision-making processes are more inclusive and representative. Statisticians are starting to recognise governance statistics as a fourth leg of official statistics, alongside economic, social and environmental statistics. This Post-2015 Reflections Paper outlines the importance of effective institutions for sustainable development and examines what steps are being taken to achieve the change required.

Open government data (OGD) as a concept is gaining currency globally due to the strong advocacy of global organisations as Open Government Partnership. In recent years, there has been increased commitment on the part of national governments to proactively disclose information. However, much of the discussion on OGD is at the national level, especially in developing countries where commitments of proactive disclosure is conditioned by the commitments of national governments as expressed through the OGP national action plans. However, the local is important in the context of open data. In decentralized contexts, the local is where data is collected and stored, where there is strong feasibility that data will be published, and where data can generate the most impact when used. This synthesis paper wants to refocus the discussion of open government data in sub-national contexts by analysing nine country papers produced through the Open Data in Developing Countries research project. Using a common research framework that focuses on context, governance setting, and open data initiatives, the study found out that there is substantial effort on the part of sub-national governments to proactively disclose data, however, the design delimits citizen participation, and eventually, use. Second, context demands diff erent roles for intermediaries and diff erent types of initiatives to create an enabling environment for open data. Finally, data quality will remain a critical challenge for sub-national governments in developing countries and it will temper potential impact that open data will be able to generate.

El propósito de este estudio es analizar el diseño y el funcionamiento del Consejo desde la perspectiva de la participación ciudadana para contar con una línea de base que permita conocer sus alcances y limitaciones, así como la calidad y los resultados del proceso participativo. El documento tiene la siguiente estructura. En el primer capítulo, se presenta una breve descripción de los antecedentes y los elementos de la política nacional de cambio climático, que definen el contexto institucional en el cual se inserta el Consejo. En el segundo capítulo se describe de forma general el Consejo y su operación desde 2013 a la fecha. En el tercer capítulo se describe la metodología utilizada para el análisis del diseño institucional y la operación del Consejo. En el cuarto capítulo se presentan los resultados del análisis del diseño institucional. En el quinto capítulo, se presentan los resultados del análisis de la operación del Consejo en la etapa 2013-2016. El sexto capítulo aborda los hallazgos y las conclusiones del análisis. Por último, en el séptimo capítulo se presenta una serie de recomendaciones sobre los aspectos de mejora en el diseño y operación del Consejo a partir de los hallazgos.

Although a significant number of public organizations have embraced the idea of open data, many are still reluctant to do this. One root cause is that the publicizing of data represents a shift from a closed to an open system of governance, which has a significant impact upon the relationships between public agencies and the users of open data. Yet no systematic research is available which compares the benefits of an open data with the barriers to its adoption. Based on interviews and a workshop, the benefits and adoption barriers for open data have been derived. The findings show that a gap exists between the promised benefits and barriers. They furthermore suggest that a conceptually simplistic view is often adopted with regard to open data, one which automatically correlates the publicizing of data with use and benefits. Five ‘myths’ are formulated promoting the use of open data and placing the expectations within a realistic perspective. Further, the recommendation is given to take a user’s view and to actively govern the relationship between government and its users.

El Estudio de la OCDE sobre integridad en México es uno de los primeros estudios en aplicar la nueva Recomendación del Consejo de la OCDE sobre Integridad Pública (2017). En el Estudio se evalúa i) la coherencia y la amplitud del sistema de la integridad pública; ii) hasta qué punto las nuevas reformas de México inculcan una cultura de integridad en la sociedad y el sector público; y iii) la eficacia de mecanismos cada vez más estrictos de rendición de cuentas. Además, el Estudio incluye un enfoque sectorial en la contratación pública, una de las mayores áreas de gasto gubernamental en el país y una área de actividad gubernamental de alto riesgo para el fraude y la corrupción. El estudio ofrece varias propuestas para fortalecer los arreglos institucionales y mejorar la coordinación vertical y horizontal, colmar las lagunas aún existentes en los diversos marcos legales y políticos, inculcar los valores de integridad y asegurar la sostenibilidad de las reformas.

This report reviews the experiences of fourteen countries in the region in designing, implementing, and monitoring anti-corruption strategies as well as the drivers for developing these strategies. It also calls for using evidence-based corruption measurement tools to develop and evaluate anti-corruption strategies effectively. This is essential to avoid that anti-corruption strategies remain mere declaration of intent and ensure that anti-corruption efforts are result-based. The report provides useful guidance for countries in the region in developing, implementing and evaluating anti-corruption strategies.

México ha transitado por varias etapas en la relación gobierno-ciudadanía a lo largo de su proceso democrático. En la primera etapa de la transición (1977-1988) el foco de atención radicó en ampliar la pluralidad política y fortalecer el sistema de partidos. Entre 1985 y 1988, con un número creciente de ciudadanos organizándose para distintas tareas cívicas, un nuevo marco para la participación ciudadana en la vida cívica empezó a desarrollarse. Para 1991, era evidente que la política pública necesitaba canales adicionales para canalizar nuevas formas de participación social. Surge así la contraloría social de los programas sociales, pero sobretodo un impulso social de vigilancia y control de la gestión pública que años después se enriquecería con la agenda de transparencia y rendición de cuentas y participación social. En 2002, ambas agendas --contraloría social y transparencia-- convergen por primera vez en el Manual Ciudadano. En ese año, Transparencia Mexicana y la Secretaría de Desarrollo Social (SEDESOL), aún sin ley de transparencia decidieron abrir padrones de beneficiarios y las reglas de operación de los programas al escrutinio de beneficiarios y de la sociedad en general. A veinte años del surgimiento de la contraloría social y una década del primer Manual Ciudadano sobre programas sociales, es necesario consolidar lo avanzado. Institucionalizar los programas sociales significa consolidar los esfuerzos normativos, de fiscalización, transparencia y participación social, que de manera aislada y en ocasiones poco coherente surgieron en los últimos veinte años. Institucionalizar los programas sociales significa que los derechos garantizados por nuestra constitución y hechos exigibles por la reforma constitucional de 2011, sean idénticos para todos los ciudadanos y en todos los rincones del país.

En México, la construcción de una cultura de la evaluación? es un proceso que se inició en la década de 1970; sin embargo,? como un ejercicio normado, sistemático y riguroso? orientado hacia el logro de resultados, es una realidad de? hace apenas algunos años. El CONEVAL, con base en sus atribuciones, realiza actividades? dirigidas a implementar una cultura de la evaluación.? Se busca, con ello, que los resultados de esas evaluaciones? sean insumos que lleguen a los tomadores de decisiones y? forme parte del ciclo de la política pública, además de apoyar? la rendición de cuentas. El siguiente documento explica? la manera en que se ha diseñado y llevado a cabo desde el? CONEVAL la política de la evaluación de los programas de? desarrollo social en nuestro país?.

The concept of open government, having been promoted widely in the past 5 years, has promised a broader notion than e-government, as supposed to fundamentally transform governments to become more open and participative and collaborative. Unfortunately, this has not significantly enhanced a set of fundamental problems regarding e-government. One of the problems is that the underlying democratic ideology is rarely clearly expressed. In this paper, we have therefore constructed a framework for the analysis of open government from a democratic perspective, to explore the research foundation of open government and the types of research missing. We have looked closely at the notion of democracy in peer-reviewed journals on open government from 2009 to 2013, focusing on discussions of some fundamental issues regarding democracy and the type of solutions suggested. We have found that despite seemingly good intentions and an extensive rhetoric, there is still an apparent lack of adequate tools in which public deliberation and representation are addressed in any meaningful sense. There are two main important observations herein: (i) the rhetoric in the dominant discourse supports the concept of open government formulated by the Obama administration as transparency, participation, and collaboration, but in practice, the focus is predominantly on transparency and information exchange, while ignoring fundamental democratic issues regarding participation and collaboration, and (ii) the concept of the public is inadequately considered as a homogenous entity rather than a diversified group with different interests, preferences, and abilities.