The Case of Chile: From the secret state to the open state
Por Paulina Ibarra.
In the mid-nineties, following the return to democracy (1990), Chile began a process of cultural change aimed toward greater transparency. At that point, “the Chilean state was known as a state of secret” explains Alberto Precht, Secretary of the Commission on Integrity and Transparency of the Ministry General Secretariat of the Presidency and Chile’s representative to Open Government Partnership.
Corruption cases reinforced the need for a pro-transparency agenda that became increasingly formalized from 2002-2003 onwards. According to Precht, it was an agenda of “consensus” that would ultimately change the political makeup of the government.
Increasing Public Access
One of the most important milestones during this pro-transparency reform period has been the enactment of a 2008 law increasing public access to information. To monitor compliance, the government created an independent agency, the Council for Transparency.“More than 100,000 requests for information have been submitted to date,”notes Precht.
While embraced by the public, the requests for increasing transparency sparked fears among some government officials. “I remember the fear public officials had of publishing their salaries on the Internet. However, despite all the concern, nothing serious happened,” says Precht. One outcome of the law has been the revelation of the properties, assets, and potential conflicts of interest for government officials. This has generated news reports and increased audits and scrutiny by civil society representatives, which have in turn helped restore integrity and stronger accountability mechanisms among public officials. “While modernization requires public participation, this implies a paradigm shift because policies have historically been generated from the experts and not from the people,” Precht adds.
He also suggests that other measures will soon go up for parliamentary debate, including a new regulation on lobbying and financing of electoral campaigns. Additionally, other open government initiatives are in the works, such as the recently launched beta version of a public data portal, which according to Precht “allows for databases that can build applications and provide information, such as crime maps or how much longer a bus will reach a particular stop.”
“We want to shine in OGP”
Last September, the government of Chile submitted a letter of intent to join the Open Government Partnership (OGP). In December, officials created a domestic OGP working group that included four NGOs and the Comptroller General of the Republic and the Commission for Transparency, which are autonomous auditors in this area. These groups will work together with the Government to create the first draft country action plan to be presented on March 30, 2012 by President Sebastián Piñera to the Chilean public.
Felipe Heusser, Director of Ciudadano Inteligente, one of the civil society organizations invited to the working group in charge of developing a country action plan for Chile, says that there is no doubt that Chile is much better off than it was a few years ago. “We now have a Freedom of Information Law in place that has worked reasonably well thanks to all stakeholders, including Government, civil society organizations, and the Transparency Council (Information Commissioner) that have done a fantastic job. In comparative terms, Chile is one of the countries with most submissions of information requests, which is a healthy sign of a society that is using its right to know,”Heusser notes.
“As a country, one of our greatest assets should be to have the image of a transparent country,” says Precht. Chile recently ranked number 22 in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index and wants to move to the top 20. “Though we are witnessing some positive signs towards transparency like the publishing of data catalogs, much more needs to be done. Open data is not about the publication of a few pieces of data, but the substantive publication of enough data that may allow us to understand policies and account government’s performance. Policies will never be transparent if they can’t be tested and openly evaluated,” adds Heusser.
In March, Chile attended the OGP regional outreach meeting in Mexico, and also undertook a technical visit to Colombia to learn about the government’s strategy to reduce paperwork.
These past few months, Chile reached agreements on OGP at the technical committee level. However, the public consultation process involved only five organizations, so the remaining challenge is to get input from a larger number of citizens who may not yet be aware of these new measures.
According to Heusser, Chilean civil society organizations are looking forward to OGP and its upcoming annual meeting in Brazil. “We see it as a great opportunity to persuade our governments to move the transparency agenda forward and deeper by learning and sharing from some of the best transparency practices that exist among the international community.”
Thus far Precht and Heusser believe that the greatest success for Chile since joining the OGP has been the understanding that secrecy in public affairs has to be the exception, not the rule, and that ensuring accountability requires independent bodies to oversee public agencies. Chile will deliver its first draft action plan in April 2012 “and we want shine in this initiative,” concludes Precht.
OGP original publication: http://www.opengovpartnership.org/news/case-chile-secret-state-open-state
