A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance

Results reporting format
No results reporting format up to now.
Gender focus
Standard 21 assesses the gender breakdown of
municipal human resources.
Poverty focus
Not explicit.
Strengths
The tool has been conceived to suit the great
heterogeneity of Chilean municipalities: different
standards have been set (basic/intermediate/
advanced), which Chilean municipalities have to
meet based on their more or less “favourable
conditions to implement transparent practices”
(based on population, socio-economic situation,
technological conditions, and IT access) Instead of
applying a “blanket methodology” with one set
of standards to be met by all, three groups of
municipalities have to meet three different sets of
standards. Such a contextualized approach
fosters a sense of fairness, especially amongst
municipalities where “conditions” are less
favourable, which increases local buy-in and
likelihood that results are used by local policymakers.
Weaknesses
• The standards aim to guarantee access to
information to an “average citizen” but have a
minimal focus on groups who are more likely
to be excluded from the reach of public
information programmes, such as ethnic
minority groups and the poor. For instance, the
standards do not refer to the percentage of
publicly available government information
that is accessible in local/ethnic minority
languages, to whether the means of
communication used are utilised by women
and the poor (such as the radio), or whether
systematic channels of communication exist
between government agencies and women’s
and pro-poor groups.
• The standards focus primarily on “active
transparency” (i.e. on the proactive dissemination
of information by the municipal government);
standards on “passive transparency” are
minimal, mainly assessing whether procedures
for responding to public information requests
from citizens exist.
• The tool draws exclusively from objective data,
which is used to assess the existence of
programmes and mechanisms for local
transparency, but which falls short of assessing
the quality of these mechanisms.
Coverage
The project is at the inception stage and has not
been tested on the ground yet, but the intention is
to implement it nationwide.
Timeline
Started in December 2007. On-going.
Where to find it
http://www.munitel.cl/eventos/otros/chiletransparente/propuestatransparencia.pdf
Contact details
Chile Transparente
Rancagua 535, Providencia
Santiago, Chile
Fono fax: 56-2-2743627
www.chiletransparente
Supplementary tools/guidelines
Power point presentation of the standards for municipal transparency:
http://www.munitel.cl/eventos/escuela2008/Documentos/sede_valdivia/concejales/concejal03.pdf
140 UNDP Oslo Governance Centre