Portals

In OBS 2021 we encountered several countries that were using different types of portals to respond to questions of the PBS, EBP and, EB. Among these were: Ecuador, Argentina and, Mexico.

Argentina had used the Open Data Portal of the National Government in OBS 2019 under the criteria that it was mentioned in the Referral Message. However, in OBS 2021 said site was not mentioned in the bill or the referral message and therefore the researcher was not considering it to respond to questions.

Ecuador had used the Execution Portal for questions of the EBP, EB, IYR and, MYR under the criteria that the access was on the same page as the access to the EBP and EB.

For Mexico, the Budget Transparency Portal was created back in 2011 and is the result of joint work with different civil society and business organizations, including Fundar our OBS partner, to disseminate and make transparent information on the performance of the Pp using graphs, tables and, educational maps in a citizen language. Together with these organizations, we are working on a common agenda in terms of transparency, accountability and, a new strategy of informing citizens through the “Citizen Budget”. Mexico went through a process of legal reforms in transparency and the portal was accepted to be considered in the OBS under the agreement that it was established in the legal regulations.

The explanatory memorandum and the draft decree of expenditures used to make a more explicit reference that has changed over the years, case in point instead of a single general text, now different articles of the decree referred to the fact that the information must also be published on the portal, for example contracts, programs, information by gender. Also, the phrasing has changed from “Budget Transparency Portal” to “Electronic Transparency Portal”, also multiple references to publishing in “open data”.

According to the researcher Budget Transparency portal of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit is a great advance in terms of access to public information. An effort promoted by the government (SHCP) and civil society, as highlighted in a press note on the 10th anniversary of this platform and its importance.

On Mexico see also The Road to Budget Transparency in Mexico.

In order to arrive at a uniform criterion that was consistent across countries, the decision that was agreed is that an explicit reference is required linking the documents to the portal. Being consistent with what we accept in different countries, it would be necessary:


 * 1.	See an explicit reference to the platform in any of the other key budget documents (for example, if the EBP explicitly says: "Check the online platform for x, y, z".
 * 2.	The purpose of the platform: that the information on the platform is published alongside these documents. (For example: Do not use performance reports to answer about formulation information).

In that sense, we decided to:


 * Not accept the Argentina portal this round, as the explicit reference was missing.
 * Not accept the Ecuador portal this round to answer questions on the PBS, EBP and, EB, since having the two accesses (portal and documents) in the same webpage is not considered sufficient. That said the Execution portal is accepted to answer questions of the IYR and MYR.
 * Accept the Mexico portal, given the long historic track, the diverse references to publishing the info in the “Electronic Transparency Portal” o in “open data”, the purpose and robustness of the portal.