The Governance, Integrity and Transparency Challenge in Latin America

Most Latin American countries (16 out of 20) have implemented tools to strengthen citizen participation, including information access laws to promote citizens’ right to request and receive information, or open government and open data initiatives in an effort to encourage accountability. According to a survey in 10 cities in the region, 57% of respondents believe that people do not worry enough about corruption.

What role can technology play in enhancing citizen oversight? How can we strengthen tendering, contracting and project control processes? How can we encourage private companies to adopt integrity programs? How can we strengthen the role of the media and NGOs in processing and disseminating information about government action? These are some of the questions we need to answer as a society to build the strong and efficient institutions that we need in order to improve the well-being of the population, and which will be discussed on November 7 in Quito, Ecuador, at the CAF Conference: Governance, Integrity and Transparency for Development.

This Conference takes place in the context of CAF’s 50th anniversary, and seeks to provide input for the debate on the region’s governance challenges, strengthening its institutions and applying stricter standards in public and private sector integrity. Four panels will bring together leading experts to address the following topics: Overcoming the trust crisis: from sanctions to prevention; governance and transparency in the infrastructure sector; e-government, open data and citizen participation; and capacity building in the public and private sectors.

As every year, more than 500 opinion leaders will gather to discuss the main development challenges facing the region, including Luis Carranza, CAF executive president; Otto Sonnenholzner, Vice President of Ecuador; Luis Felipe López-Calva, UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean; Marisol Argueta de Barillas, Senior Director for Latin America and Member of the Executive Committee of the World Economic Forum; Alberto Precht, member of the Board of Directors of Transparency International and executive director of Chile Transparente; María Barón, global executive director of the Directorio Legislativo Foundation; Ania Calderón, executive director of Open Data Charter; Daniel Kaufmann, president of the Natural Resources Governance Institute; Warren Smith, Director of the Global Digital Marketplace Program at Government Digital Service (GDS); Kevin Casas, former vice president of Costa Rica and secretary-general of International IDEA; and Felipe Ribadeneira, Chairman of the Board of FEDEXPOR.

Click here to sign up, view the program and follow the CAF Conference in Quito live.