Argentina Progress Report 2015-2017

Six months into this 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..., a change in government revitalized the open government agenda in Argentina. The new administration expanded both civil society participation and the thematic reach of the commitments. The future challenge is translating the renewed enthusiasm into results for greater government openness.

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) is a voluntary international initiative that aims to secure commitments from governments to their citizenry to promote 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, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. 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 ... carries out a biannual review of the activities of each OGP-participating country. This report covers the first year of implementation of Argentina’s 2015–2017 action plan.

Argentina began participating in OGP in October 2012. The chief of the Cabinet of Ministers, within the Undersecretariat of Management Technologies, was responsible for OGP during the development of the second action plan. After the government changed hands in December 2015, the new administration established the Coordination of Open Government, which became part of the new Undersecretariat for Public Innovation and Open Government. This agency belongs to the Secretariat for Management and Public Innovation of the also newly established Ministry of Modernization.

OGP PROCESS
Countries participating in OGP follow a process for consultation during development and implementation of their OGP action plan. Due to the change in government, Argentina’s action plan includes commitments developed by both the previous and current administrations. The plan underwent a consultation process for each of the two phases of 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... development. This report covers the first consultation process for commitments assumed by the previous administration.

Although there was an open call for participation during the development of the plan, the government did not offer information about the process in a timely manner. The government provided participants with a timeline of awareness-raising activities and a summary of consultation results.

The government did not publish its self-assessment report on time, and the self-assessment was not available until after the writing of this report.

COMMITMENT IMPLEMENTATION
As part of OGP, countries make commitments in a two-year action plan. Argentina’s action plan contains six commitments. The following table summarizes the levels of completionImplementers must follow through on their commitments for them to achieve impact. For each commitment, OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) evaluates the degree to which the activities outlin... More and the potential impact for each commitment. After the first year of implementation, Argentina’s second action plan does not contain any starred commitments.

Note that the IRM updated the criteria for these commitments in early 2015 to raise the standard for model OGP commitments. Under these criteria, commitments must be highly specific, relevant to OGP values, of transformative potential impact, and substantially completed or complete.

This report was prepared by Inés Pousadela, independent researcher.