ICT as a tool for municipality transparency and efficiency in Panama

Diego Cardona
Eng MSc PhD
diego.cardona.68@gmail.com
Published at the Journal “Information Technology in Developing Countries” Volume 21, No. 1,
February 2011 from the IFIP Working Group 9.4 and the Center for Electronic Governance, Indian
Institute of Management
http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/egov/ifip/feb2011/diego-cardona.htm

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the application at Panama starting in October, 2010 of the initiative Efficient
and Transparent Municipalities – MuNet developed by the Organization of American States – OAS.
The objective of this project is to help Latin-American municipalities to use ICT tools to improve
efficiency and transparency in its activities. The phase I was developed between 2005 and 2006 in
22 municipalities distributed in 11 Latin-American countries supported by 5 experts of 5 different
nationalities. The process implies a diagnosis of the general situation of the municipality including
technological aspects, transparency and efficiency perceptions, and citizen participation
development. Besides the diagnosis, participants receive a course for the Introduction to the
Formulation of Electronic Government Strategies in order to prepare a strategy proposal to apply
electronic government with collaboration of a Consultancy Team and a Task Force defined by the
Major in each municipality. The document approved by the society and the political ambit is
implemented by the Task Force. In some cases, using the technological support offered by the
project, specifically with software applications to develop the WEB page of the municipality –
MuniPortal –, another software – MuniCompra – to improve the buying process, another to support
the creation of a one stop window for the municipality services – MuniServi –and a last one –
MuniParticipa – to improve the citizen participation.

ANTECEDENTS

MuNet Phase I
In the last decade the improvement in Information and Communication Technologies – ICT and its
application in government accelerated the process in Latin-American governmental institutions
developing a citizen centered vision and increasing the active participation of private sector and
nongovernmental organization in the public ambit.

The impact of ICT is not only an internal process, it also affects the relationship with the citizens
improving efficiency, reducing transaction costs, increasing the satisfaction level and supporting the
transparency in the public management via the clear data flow among the different levels of
government. Finally the ICT creates a bridge with a competitive and globalized world opening
many opportunities at social, cultural and economical ambit. In the Latin-American society, as in
other development regions, municipalities are the axis of development and due to its proximity to
the citizens it becomes the point of contact to assure the success of any governmental action.

With some few exceptions that confirm the general rule, the Latin-American municipalities appear
as inefficient and with a dangerous lack of transparency. As a consequence of this situation, the
Organization of American States – OAS designed and applied the MuNet project [1] to help Latin-
American municipalities to use ICT tools to improve efficiency and transparency in its activities.
MuNet offers a tool kit that helps to take advantage of the ICT possibilities with a complete
program that includes; diagnosis, training, consultancy and technology. The first phase of MuNet,
developed in 2005 was used to validate each component of the tool kit [2] including:
• Workshop to explain the project and to create the necessity among municipalities
• Diagnosis about transparency, efficiency, citizen participation and ICT use
• Task Force training
• Electronic government strategy preparation
• Technological implementation

Although MuNet uses ICT to improve efficiency and transparency at municipalities, the strong
component of the project is a human team that using virtual tools it is capable to overtake the
challenge associated to the public consultancy, organizational knowledge, consecution of political
support and cultural resistance.

Learned lessons

The first stage of MuNet allowed the OAS to conclude that municipalities of Latin America have an
urgent necessity of support to raise the train of the knowledge society in different aspects like
planning, training, technology, political issues, information and sustainability. Despite this, great
part of Latin America municipal political leaders are not still conscious of which the citizenship is
risking if they lose this train. This first part has also confirmed the suspicion that only an integral
program can put municipalities in the footpath of the knowledge society. Detached activities of
training, consultancy or technology implementation will hardly obtain sustainable precise results in
the time. Additionally, phase I confirmed that without the commitment of the upper authority of the
municipality, which in the Literature of the electronic government would be called political support,
no initiative will obtain remarkable results independent of its integrality. Also it has been
demonstrated that the reality of Latin America is diverse and that in their varied geography there are
almost 20,000 municipalities, many of them with a pressing necessity of support to materialize its
interest to take advantage of the opportunities that offer the ICT

Following the well-known economic theories related to the consumer behavior, the municipalities
tend to give a value of 0 US$ to those services that receive to a cost 0 US$. Although the
municipality makes a contribution to the project in form of human resources and infrastructure, all
the services that received from MuNet in their phase I were gratuitous. In phase II, MuNet will
receive from the participant municipalities a symbolic amount that allows establishing a clear initial
commitment with the project. The human being needs incentives to surpass themselves and to
assume challenges, then MuNet will incorporate national annual recognitions as much as
international.

Those professionals near the scope of the electronic government know that a successful
implementation of projects in this area requires a suitable combination of three main elements:
people, processes and technology. Phase I of MuNet has taken advantage of the opportunities
offered by ICT for accomplishment of work under remote form, but has also confirmed that no
technology can replace the human presence in important instances. Although MuNet will continue
taking advantage of the ICT to reduce the implementation costs, will include more personal
interaction among the municipal MuNet Consultancy Team and the Task Force.

The dexterity of the municipal governments to make decisions, when they are compared with other
instances of government, it is a double edged weapon for a project like MuNet. This agility causes
that municipality priorities can change with more frequency than wished to be and human resources
have a greater level of rotation, so than the one that would be advisable to maintain projects of
medium term in operation. These aspects have been a constant challenge for MuNet in some of the
municipalities and have forced to handle the calendar of activities with excessive flexibility. MuNet
will establish a calendar-commitment with the participant municipalities and the municipality that
cannot follow the calendar will be retired of the project.

One of the more valued aspects by the municipalities phase I of MuNet was the possibility of
knowing what was making other municipalities and how they were doing it. It is not a secret that
the opportunity to take references from advanced municipalities and to extract learned lessons is a
valuable tool of advance for the electronic government, for that reason, MuNet II will incorporate a
creation of a network of work for all the participant municipalities.

PANAMA PROJECT

The vision of MuNet is to accelerate municipalities’ movement towards the efficiency and
transparency using ICT, and a minimal level of these characteristics improves the development of
the society.
As a result, the Project objectives are:
• Create at the top of mind of the decision makers, that ICT improves the transparency and
efficiency.
• Support municipality’s efforts to implement ICT as tools to improve transparency and
efficiency.
• Create and prove a tool kit in order to implement electronic government initiatives.

At Panama were selected 28 municipalities to participate in the project under the direction of The
National Authority for Government Innovation, former Government Innovation Secretariat – SIG,
the competent entity in charge of planning, coordinating, issuing guidelines, overseeing,
collaborating, supporting and promoting the optimal use of ICT in the government sector for
modernizing public management, as well as recommending the adoption of national strategic
policies, plans and actions related to the matter.

The project was launched on October 6, 2010 [3] with a Sensitization of the Majors and Project
Managers for each municipality. The idea is to continue with the following activities:
• Development of ICT, transparency, efficiency and participation diagnosis at municipality
• Training of human resource in electronic government theory
• Design of strategy for electronic government
• Implementation of technological platform including MuniPortal, MuniCompra, MuniServi and
MuniParticipa
• Support consultancy to create the electronic government strategy and the technical platform
implementation.

METHODOLOGY
As it was mentioned, MuNet was designed in order to incorporate the municipalities in the
knowledge society using an innovating structure. MuNet applies a dynamic and coordinated work
style using ICT, mainly internet, email, IP telephony, chats, video and a virtual platform. Enabling
remote support from the Consultancy Team to the municipality’s Task Force.

The virtual interface developed at the OAS WEB site http://community.oas.org/munet/default.aspx

is the key element to improve the relationship among participants creating an efficient learning
system to share opinions, questions and experiences. This virtual platform develops the remote
work, the time optimization, the instant assessment and the follow up along the complete project
phases. Additionally, the methodology enforces the relationship between the Task Force and the
Consultancy Team, as a basic way to solve traditional project difficulties and consolidate the
normal process.

In some cases, the low internet access at some municipalities must be override via the commitment
of the Consultancy Team and the Task Force using alternatives communications ways, telephone,
fax or traditional mail. As a result, MuNet proves that is possible to change the traditional work
structures in cooperation and technical assistance projects under low cost policies and use effective
tools without dismissing quality and efficiency.

In order to assure the implementation of the Project, each Major designated a Project Coordinator or
“MuNet Manager” as the focal point and responsible of the development of all the activities.
Additionally, an employee’s team of the municipalities, the Task Force, was selected to interact
with the Consultancy Team and to receive the basic course in electronic government strategy
preparation, creating the seed for the leadership in this area at the municipality, responsible to do
the diagnosis, prepare the strategy, define the projects and implement it. With this method, MuNet
assured the sustainability of the project and an internal structure to develop the technological
implementation of the projects at the municipality.

The coordinated work of the MuNet Task Force with the Consultancy Team combined with the
implementation of the proposed methodology will be the base of the design and implementation of
electronic government strategies. The first draft of the strategies are developed as a result of the
course in basic theory in electronic government, the final document results from the revision among
the Task Force with the support of the Consultancy Team.

MAIN ACTIVITIES

Diagnosis
The first step is to make an ICT diagnosis to determine the degree of application of ICT in the
municipality as a departure point for the Consultancy Team and for the Task Force based on the
intensity in which they are used in the daily activities of the municipality and in the interaction with
citizens. Also the diagnosis is used to detect the necessities of investment in infrastructure and
connectivity, as well as reveal useful information for the decision making at local level particularly
as far as the preparation, implementation and use of the ICT. On the other hand, the evaluation
contributed to the identification of strengths and weaknesses of the municipality with the purpose of
orienting resources towards the advantage of the advantages provided by the ICT. The transparency
and efficiency diagnosis are designed with the purpose of orienting the Consultancy Team and the
Task Force on the level of transparency and efficiency in the municipality and the perception of the
citizens of the same one at the beginning of the program. This must be made with a survey applied
to the employs about key information on basic aspects such as information access, the financial
handling of the municipality and the resources investment. Also, it identifies the strengths and
weaknesses of the municipality in relation to the existence of mechanisms to follow up complaints.
Finally, the citizenship perception of the level of municipal transparency and efficiency is
introduced including the degree of honesty of its employees in the administrative processes and if
there is communication channels with the citizenship. Finally, all the collected information could be
very useful to the Task Force to evaluate the advances in this field after the conclusion of the
project.
Virtual course
The course “Introduction to the Formulation of Electronic Government Strategies” is offered via the
online training platform of the OAS https://courses.oas.orgstarting in November 2010 with duration
of seven weeks. This course has been taken by more than 3000 persons at Ibero- America. During
the course the participants received the necessary knowledge to create the basic document of
electronic government strategy for the municipalities including the particular aspect of each
community under the support of specialized tutors in electronic government and virtual education.
The participants are nominated by the Major and the MuNet Manager of each municipality. For this
reason, the basic profile of the participants varied from the employ in a little municipality without
education to the employ in big cities with master degrees. This situation creates an important
challenge to the Tutor Team.

Strategies development
The propose work methodology suppose a series of challenges for the Consultancy Team s as for
the Task Force whom participate in the project. One of the main challenges is to coordinate the
daily work through the virtual platform, since the Consultancy Team did not have personal
communication with the Task Force. In addition, the Consultancy Team did not have the
opportunity to be directly at the municipality; therefore, all the MuNet universe was developed in
the cyberspace having raised new spaces for the learning and the interchange of experience. The
profile of the Consultancy Team is extremely cosmopolitan coming from the entire American
continent. This diversity made that the sum of experiences, world visions, explanations of the
reality, and specific knowledge of electronic Government is in fact a great cultural, diverse, rich and
complex mixture. Once the work began, the contact between the Consultancy Team and the Task
Force in each municipality has been carried out using virtual tools, mainly through the virtual
platform provided by the OAS. Nevertheless, , some of the consultants chose to use additional tools
like the Skype, MSN and Yahoo with the purpose of facilitating and accelerating the relation as
well as to create the documentation of the process. In some cities, with spread Internet connection,
the task of constructing virtual relations is relatively easy considering that to impose a discipline
without having personal communication always is difficult. The difficulties are greater in other
municipalities with different social and ethnic realities, and very specific economies. In that phase,
the work of the Consultancy Team is to support the local work in the rise information on its
administration and in the development of a unique electronic government strategy endorsed by all
the stakeholders.

Technological tool
The MuNet project offers to the municipalities e-Muni; a technological platform, conceived to
accelerate the advances of the electronic government in the municipalities of Latin America and the
Caribbean. e-Government application package “e-Muni”, includes: MuniPortal (municipal portal),
MuniCompra (municipal procurement), MuniServi (municipal services for citizens) and
MuniParticipa (online participation of citizens).

Technical support
The Consultancy Team visits the municipalities to present the strategy and to start the technical
support in the implementation process, which is the last phase of the project. Those visits follow a
basic scheme in relation to the meetings that must be carried out with the strategic actors, the
institutional presentation of the OAS and the activities of the MuNet program. Simultaneously, the
visits offer the opportunity to give the approval certification to whom participated in the virtual
course.
EXPECTED RESULTS
The clearest impact of MuNet must be also the most basic step: the beginning of ICT and
citizenship centered activities. Through the support of the Consultancy Team to the Task Force in
the definition of a strategic frame for the use of the ICT in each municipality, a dialogue with the
political authorities will be generate delimitating barriers for the consideration of technology
acquisitions in the municipal budget. Other qualitative impacts of MuNet must include the
availability scarce resources, as technology, to improve the process of projects follow up of and its
physical and financial execution, improvement of connectivity infrastructure, identification of
concrete objectives to short, medium and long term that ensures the completion of the arduous
digitalization process under the responsibility of a Task Force, as a seed of experts, expanding its
vision beyond the local reality, emphasizing the importance of ICT in the global development and
the necessity to have a strategy of electronic government who orient the initiatives to make.

On the other hand, on line services must be implemented to reduce, or in some cases eliminate
interminable lines, loss of time for the citizenship that goes to the municipality, and as a
consequence, improves the life quality and finally a confidence increase of the citizenship towards
the public administration through the improvement in the benefit of services and the creation of
effective communication channels between citizenship and government. This contributed as well to
the transparency and the promotion of ethical conduct among employees.

REFERENCES
[1] Cardona, Diego, et. al., “MuNet, a new way to improve municipalities”, Proceedings of the
3rd International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance ACM International
Conference Proceeding Series; Vol. 322, Pages: 240–245, December 2009, ISBN 978–1–60558–
663–2, available at http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1693042.1693090 {January, 2011]
[2] Cardona, Diego, et. al., “MuNet, Municipios Eficientes y Transparentes”, Washington,
Secretaría Ejecutiva para el Desarrollo Integral – SEDI/OEA, 78 p, ISBN 978–0–8270–5318–2
available at http://portal.oas.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=EM7RzXT1b1s%3d&tabid=1169
[January, 2011]
[3] OAS, MuNet Launch in Panama, available at:
http://portal.oas.org/Portal/Sector/SAP/DptodeModernizacióndelEstadoyGobernabilidad/NPA/MuN
eteGovernment/MuNetCountries/Panamá/tabid/1811/language/en-US/Default.aspx {January, 2011]