Foreword
Open government is a culture of governance that promotes the principles of transparency, integrity, accountability and stakeholder participation in support of democracy and inclusive growth. It represents a changed understanding of the role of the state in a modern society. Countries around the world increasingly acknowledge that open government can improve government efficiency and effectiveness, while bringing the administration and its officials closer to citizens.
Recognising these benefits, Argentina has launched ambitious and innovative open government initiatives across the country. By involving all branches of power and levels of government, Argentina is moving towards what the OECD calls an “open state”.
This OECD Open Government Review of Argentina analyses the current state of open government in the country. It examines Argentina’s open government policies and initiatives against the principles of the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Open Government (2017), the first internationally recognised legal instrument in this area. As the first country to be assessed against the Recommendation’s ten provisions, Argentina will contribute to developing the methodology and set an ambitious baseline for future country reviews.
While it has made significant progress in open government, Argentina now needs to institutionalise these reforms and practices, to ensure their impact and long-term sustainability. In addition, Argentina should consider developing a whole-of-government framework for open government to provide a clear direction to the entire public sector and clarify priorities and goals for all stakeholders.
The Review starts by analysing the context for open government reforms in Argentina (Chapter 1). It then provides recommendations to strengthen the policy framework (Chapter 2) and the legal and regulatory framework (Chapter 3) for open government. It analyses ways to ensure the effective implementation of open government reforms (Chapter 4), the government’s efforts to build a monitoring and evaluation system for open government (Chapter 5), and citizen and stakeholder participation practices (Chapter 6). At the request of the Government of Argentina, the Review puts a particular focus on the multilevel governance of open government and on the country’s progressive move towards an open state (Chapter 7). It concludes with an integrated analysis of digital government and open government practices (Chapter 8).
The Review was prepared under the auspices of the OECD Public Governance Committee, as part of its broader engagement with Argentina, which currently includes three other policy reviews in the areas of digital government, integrity and regulatory policy. Together these reviews provide an integrated set of recommendations to support Argentina’s public sector modernisation efforts.