Inception Report – Action plan – Osasco, Brazil, 2021 – 2024

Name of Evaluator

Gabriela de Brelàz

Email

gabriela.brelaz@unifesp.br

Member

Osasco, Brazil

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...

Action plan – Osasco, Brazil, 2021 – 2024

1.1 Does a forum exist?

No

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The Forum has not yet been created. It was diagnosed that Osasco did not have civil society organizations and social movements that dealt with open government issues, so the city hall chose to propose the methodology and invite civil society to participate in the co-creation stages (public consultations and workshops ). After the construction of the Plan, it was established that the creation of the Forum of Osasco would be carried out from 2022 to monitor the execution of the Action Plan, and participate in the decision-making processes. The intention is that with the Open Government Forum it will be possible to strengthen the open government agenda inside and outside the City Hall and, consequently, start from full collaboration, that is, in terms of methodology, with the population, for the preparation of the next Plan.

Provide evidence for your answer:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1R5xW8xFBubDLXzQ0Lnh2YfIRh_U7YxwZ

1.2 Is the forum multi-stakeholder?

No

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

According to the previous answer, the Forum has not yet been created.

Provide evidence for your answer:

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1.3 Does the forum hold at least one meeting with civil society and non-governmental stakeholders during the co-creation of the action plan?

No

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

According to the previous answer, the Forum has not yet been created.

Provide evidence for your answer:

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1.4 Has the action plan been endorsed by the stakeholders of the forum or steering committeeThe Steering Committee is OGP’s executive decision-making body. Its role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests; establish OGP’s core ideas, policies, and ru.../group?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

Yes. It is important to clarify that a Forum was not created and that participation, although open to those who wanted to participate and publicized by the city hall, had few members of civil society. According to the attendance list, the vast majority were members of the city hall. Of the 53 participants who signed the attendance list, only 7 were from civil society and 1 from the legislature. After the co-creation of the commitments the writing was done collaboratively between the participants of the virtual rooms at Zoom on the third day of the workshop.Participants were informed of the co-creation process on the first day of the workshop and received an e-mail disclosure of the final public consultation that was aired according to a news item published in July 2021. There were 50 participations among city hall, chamber, state government of SP, participative councils, organized civil society.

Provide evidence for your answer:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1R5xW8xFBubDLXzQ0Lnh2YfIRh_U7YxwZ

2.1 Does the government maintain a Local OGP website or webpage on a government website where information on the OGP Local process (co-creation and implementation) is proactively published?

No

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

SEPLAG began to face in early 2021 obstacles to manage the domain of the Secretariat’s institutional portal. The Secretariat is still seeking resolution of this problem, restraining the team from creating a specific area to feed information about Osasco in the OGP and the process of co-creating the Open Government Action Plan. SEPLAG highlights that it is important to consider that in the same period SEPLAG was preparing the Plan of Action, the Multi-Year Plan 2022-2025 of the PMO was also being built. The work was laborious, complex and voluminous in front of a reduced team. In this sense, SEPLAG was unable to provide any other solution to the issue of 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 around open government/OGP other than the use of social media to enable more open and far-reaching communication about the co-creation stages. SEPLAG is in the process of regularizing the portal and intend to launch it in February 2022.

Provide evidence for your answer:

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2.2 Did the government provide information to stakeholders in advance to facilitate informed and prepared participation in the co-creation process?

Unclear

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

According to SEPLAG, the team adopted some strategies to publicize actions around the co-creation process, especially the workshops that took place in August. The Official Press of the Municipality (IOMO) was used; letters were sent to Secretaries and Councilors inviting them to participate and mobilize the population to contribute to the co-creation of the Plan; an invitation was issued with complete information about the workshops on the social networks of the City Hall, SEPLAG and Osasco Aberta; an invitation was sent to WhatsApp groups with servers not only at the office level, but also from public equipments in different areas of public policy; an email was sent with an invitation to the Municipal Participatory Councils, as well as contact with their presidents in order to reinforce the importance of participation in this open government agenda. However, according to the report of the Open Government Institute (Instituto de Governo Aberto – IGA), regarding the dissemination of the methodology for co-creation of the plan with the planned stages and activities, there was no publication of a document describing the entire methodology of co-creation and society was periodically invited to participate in the construction stages and activities and, in relation to the holding of events and meetings open to the public to discuss the plan’s co-creation process, this activity was partially carried out, as no event or open meeting was held as a previous step in the Plan’s co-creation process.

Provide evidence for your answer:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1R5xW8xFBubDLXzQ0Lnh2YfIRh_U7YxwZ

2.3 Did the government ensure that any interested member of the public could make inputs into the action plan and observe or have access to decision-making documentation?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

Yes, but partially. Although the invitations were carried out without restrictions the scope of the PMO invitations was limited. The opening for participation was given through tools that do not have capillarity in the city’s neighborhoods. Additionally, the pandemic context made it impossible to publicize presentially in public facilities. The dissemination actions were carried out only online, depending on the official websites, the management’s social networks and the sharing of the invitation art in WhatsApp groups. The communications were made exclusively in digital/virtual format, making it impossible for those who are digitally excluded to receive. For those who try to access the meetings on the scheduled days, there were no restrictions on participation.

Provide evidence for your answer:

 https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1R5xW8xFBubDLXzQ0Lnh2YfIRh_U7YxwZ

2.4 Did the government proactively report back or provide written feedback to stakeholders on how their contributions were considered during the creation of the action plan?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

Yes, but partially. In the 3 days of co-creation workshops, the PMO presented the themes, capturing the main problems faced in these themes. The next day, what had been discussed the day before was taken up again to think about ways of incidence and the ideas for solutions were presented. Macro themes presented on the 3rd day were chosen and proposals were drafted for joint writing and this text was jointly validated on the third day of the workshop. It is believed that this joint validation has allowed feedback to the participants. Three texts were created for each theme (2 themes) and these were put into consultation, being voted on by 50 people present. This vote validated the Action Plan, which was subsequently publicly consulted.

Provide evidence for your answer:

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2.5 Was there an iterative dialogue and shared ownership between government and non-governmental stakeholders during the decision making process, including setting the agenda?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

According to the explanation about the co-creation workshops, the dialogue was broad and open to the population, however, the participation of civil society was very small, with the majority of participants being members of the city hall as explained previously.

Provide evidence for your answer:

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2.6 Would you consider the forum to be inclusive and diverse?

No

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

Unable to answer as the Forum has not yet been created. Regarding the participants of the co-creation workshops, I do not consider it broad and diverse, and it is essential to work on this issue in 2022.

Provide evidence for your answer:

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Civic EducationAccountability within the public education system is key to improving outcomes and attainment, and accountability is nearly impossible without transparent policies and opportunities for participation ...: teach citizens how the administrations and its process work to promote social participation in decision-making.

1.1 Is the commitment verifiable?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

Yes, but partially. According to the commitment section, Item 3.2.1.2 of the OGP Local Manual “commitments are the short-term concrete initiatives to achieve the medium-term results identified in the Open Government Local Strategic Vision. Each commitment should clearly identify the problem that seeks to address the expected outcome of the commitment, milestones and implementation dates, available resources and the organizations responsible for implementing the commitment.” Thus, the plan must contain specific, time-limited and measurable commitments that are: relevant, specific, verifiable, responsive and temporal.

In the details of the commitment presented by SEPLAG/PMO and which are published in English on the OGP website  and also in the detailed document provided by SEPLAG/PMO. It is possible to observe the relevanceAccording to the OGP Articles of Governance, OGP commitments should include a clear open government lens. Specifically, they should advance at least one of the OGP values: transparency, citizen partic... of this commitment for the city of Osasco, the specificity of the problem it seeks to solve, the date it will be concluded and the agency responsible for verifying it, but it does not detail how this commitment will be verified. That is, it is not stated how the 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 of a commitment can be demonstrated, that is, how the Monitoring Body, citizens and other civil society, multilateral or private sectorGovernments are working to open private sector practices as well — including through beneficial ownership transparency, open contracting, and regulating environmental standards. Technical specificat... More partners can verify the status (status) of the commitment.

Provide evidence for your answer:

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1.2 Does the commitment language/activities clearly justify relevance to OGP values?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

Yes. The values specified are as follows:

• Civic Participation – Citizenship education will be important to seal up the civic participation, once it makes the society more aware of the administration process and that is what makes an effective public participationGiving citizens opportunities to provide input into government decision-making leads to more effective governance, improved public service delivery, and more equitable outcomes. Technical specificatio...
• Access do information: The first step to civic participation is the access to government actions, because, the population can influence the policies direction, through oversight or demanding a changing of priorities of public policy.

Provide evidence for your answer:

https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/osasco-brazil/

1.3 Please select one option that best describes the commitment:

a continuation of ongoing practice in line with existing legislationCreating and passing legislation is one of the most effective ways of ensuring open government reforms have long-lasting effects on government practices. Technical specifications: Act of creating or r..., policies or requirements.

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

Yes, the commitment is connected with the city’s initiatives involving the theme of open government and citizen participationAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, citizen participation occurs when “governments seek to mobilize citizens to engage in public debate, provide input, and make contributions that lead to m... More, prior to the entry of the municipality of Osasco into the OGP. Initiatives such as participative discussion in the Master Plan and participatory Pluriannual Plan corroborate and show that this is an ongoing practice.

Provide evidence for your answer:

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1.4 Please select one option that best describes the commitment:

will result in a change of the rules, practices or policies that govern a policy area, public sector and/or relationship between citizens and is binding or institutionalized across government or specific institution(s).

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

From the information sent and published, it is believed in the potential of this commitment to change the rules, practices or policies that govern a policy area, sector and / or relationship between citizens and is binding or institutionalized in a specific government or institution(s).

Provide evidence for your answer:

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1.5 Are there any recommended changes to the design of the commitment to help improve its implementation?

It is essential to start the process of building a broad, representative and diverse Forum in order to provide the necessary field for the construction of activities that will lead the city of Osasco to fulfil its commitment. Additionally, it is necessary to define the activities and strategies to fulfil the commitments.

2. Commitment :

Spread the social participation through the territory for citizens participated at the formulation process of budget and its monitoring, occupying the spaces, strengthening the transparency by a citizen language

2.1 Is the commitment verifiable?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

According to the Commitments section, Item 3.2.1.2 of the OGP Local Manual, “Commitments are the short-term concrete initiatives to achieve the medium-term results identified in the Open Government Local Strategic Vision. Clearly the problem it seeks to address, the expected outcome of the commitment, implementation milestones and dates, available resources, and the organizations responsible for implementing the commitment.” Thus, the plan must contain specific, time-limited and measurable commitments that are: relevant, specific, verifiable, responsive and temporal.

In the details of commitment 2 presented by SEPLAG/PMO and which are published in English on the OGP website and also in the detailed document provided by SEPLAG/PMO it is possible to observe the relevance of this commitment for the city of Osasco, the specificity of the problem it seeks to solve, the date it will be completed and the agency responsible for verifying it, and strategies that will be carried out that allow us to observe how this commitment will be verified, allowing the Monitoring Body, citizens and other civil society, multilateral or private sector partners to verify the status (status) of the commitment.
Evidences: https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/osasco-brazil/

Provide evidence for your answer:

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2.2 Does the commitment language/activities clearly justify relevance to OGP values?

Yes

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

Yes. The values are:

• Access to information – This first commitment will be able to make the budget more accessible for the people and once that’s made social participation can demand more resource for them and be a part of effective public policyThis first commitment will be able to make the budget more accessible for the people and once that’s made social participation can demand more resource for them and be a part of effective public policy.
• Public AccountabilityAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, public accountability occurs when ”rules, regulations, and mechanisms in place call upon government actors to justify their actions, act upon criticisms ... More – Once we make the budget understandable, administration can be accountable with society, which can also demand for specific policies and solve public problemsOnce we make the budget understandable, administration can be accountable with society, which can also demand for specific policies and solve public problems.
• Civic Participation – With a civic language, budget can make administration and society closer to each other, that will relate a sentiment of trust between them and make decision-making more inclusiveWith a civic language, budget can make administration and society closer to each other, that will relate a sentiment of trust between them and make decision-making more inclusive.

Provide evidence for your answer:

https://www.opengovpartnership.org/members/osasco-brazil/

2.3 Please select one option that best describes the commitment:

a continuation of ongoing practice in line with existing legislation, policies or requirements.

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

The commitment is connected with city government initiatives involving the theme of open government and budget discussion with the population prior to the entry of the municipality of Osasco into the OGP. It is worth noting that the municipality of Osasco carried out participatory budgeting as a government policy in previous administrations.

Provide evidence for your answer:

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2.4 Please select one option that best describes the commitment:

will result in a change of the rules, practices or policies that govern a policy area, public sector and/or relationship between citizens and is binding or institutionalized across government or specific institution(s).

Provide a brief explanation of your answer:

From the information sent and published, it is believed in the potential of this commitment to change the rules, practices or policies that govern a policy area, sector and / or relationship between citizens and is binding or institutionalized in a specific government or institution(s).

Provide evidence for your answer:

–

2.5 Are there any recommended changes to the design of the commitment to help improve its implementation?

It is essential to start the process of building a broad, representative and diverse Forum in order to provide the necessary field for the construction of activities that will lead the city of Osasco to fulfil its commitment. Additionally, it is necessary to define the activities and strategies to fulfil the commitments. Additionally, given that the municipality has already implemented the participatory budgeting policy, it would be important to discuss with the creators of the previous policy, academics and citizens, about the lessons learned and challenges in implementing it.