2023 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"
17th Edition
Yumbo: YA (Yumbo Abierto): Public innovation and citizen participation in the Open Government of Yumbo, Colombia.
Yumbo Abierto - YA is the collaborative creation process, between citizens, the public and private sectors, of the Open Government model of the municipality of Yumbo, Colombia. It is a pioneering experience in the country, which innovated with methodologies focused on people's feelings and preferences, to bring the principles of open government closer to citizens and strengthen the tools of participatory democracy in the municipality.
As a context of the experience, it should be noted that the municipality of Yumbo, with around 112,000 inhabitants, is known as "the industrial Capital of Colombia" for its large business and industrial capital (more than 3,800 companies). This context is reflected in the economic indicators, being one of the municipalities with the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in the country, however, the cases of corruption, the repeated investigations and the dismissals of the Mayors, affected the political and institutional stability of Yumbo for years. This promoted mistrust and disarticulation among the actors, especially citizens in relation to their public institutions, which is reflected in the low figures for citizen participation in the municipality.
In this context, in 2019 a program focused on promoting citizen participation called Participa+ Yumbo emerged, developed by the Yumbo Business Alliance, Fundación Smurfit Kappa Colombia and Fundación Corona. One of the fundamental pillars of this program is to work hand in hand with public institutions to strengthen Open Government commitments, promote transparency and the fight against corruption.
This is how, in 2021, an articulation was achieved with the Yumbo Mayor's Office in accordance with its Development Plan goals, and an Association Agreement was signed between the Mayor's Office and the Smurfit Kappa Foundation, where both parties have allocated resources and efforts. for the joint implementation of this initiative.
The experience has innovated with the implementation of design thinking and playful methodologies, where citizens have been at the center of the exercises. It has been developed in the following phases:
- Training and Prototyping Phase (2021): Implementation of the Public Innovation and Collaborative Government course with the participation of 40 officials from different departments of the Mayor's Office.
- Creation Phase of the Open Government Model and its technological tools (2022):
- Participatory diagnosis : through workshops with officials and citizens, a diagnosis was made to know the political will, the technological state, the allies and resources for the Open Government process in the municipality.
- Co-creation of the Open Government model for Yumbo and the technological tools: A collaborative construction process was developed with citizens and public officials through workshops with agile methodologies based on Design Thinking and data collection with citizen exercises in the main park, to build the guidelines of the model according to the context, its name and visual identity (“Yumbo Abierto”), and develop the technological tools of the pillars of transparency, participation, and collaboration based on the needs of citizens (https://yumboabierto.org/).
- Phase of implementation, appropriation and sustainability of Yumbo Abierto - YA (2023):
This year we will bet on innovative exercises with citizenship, especially with young people, to promote the use, appropriation and sustainability of the tools.
https://www.yumbo.gov.co/Paginas/default.aspx
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