Transparency and Access to Information Network (Red de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información)

Known by its Spanish name, Red de Transparencia y Acceso a la Información (RTA), this transparency and access to information network between Latin American countries has become a powerful instrument to promote a culture of transparency within the continent. Addressing corruption through information and organised networking, the Chilean Transparency Council forged an alliance with EUROsociAL in 2012 in order to strengthen accountability within public administrations. Comprising today more than 11 Latin America n countries, the purpose of this network is to generate exchange on best practices and methodologies to implement public policy on access to information.

Mr Raúl Ferrada Carrasco, Director General of the Chilean Transparency Council, explained at a EUROsociAL meeting in Brussels how this alliance, based on triangular south-south cooperation, has helped his institution innovate in order to implement this law within the continent.

The main challenge of this initiative was actually to provide cultural change explained Mr Ferrada Carrasco: “my country had to move from a culture of opacity to one of transparency”. Hence, the strategy to succeed in this state reform is founded on a preventive dimension. The transparency culture is starting to mainstream across all public institutions through actions including: 

• capacity development for public officials;
• institutional strengthening for organisations involved in dissemination activities to citizens;
• the development of work patterns that incorporate the component of transparency and access to information.

Now 22nd (out of 180 countries) on Transparency International’s list of the countries with the least corruption, Chile has benefited from both European and Latin American expertise. Collecting experiences and work methodologies from the English regulatory model - which includes a Commissioner for access to information - they have strengthened their knowledge and capacity through the Mexican Federal Institute for Access to Public Information (IFAI) which is the longest-standing example of transparency in the region. 

Via study visits and exchanges of experience, the benefits of this triangular south-south cooperation is spreading “Eurosocial consists in transmitting  good practices to other countries in the region” reminded Mr Ferrada Carrasco “ countries like Peru, Colombia, Salvador, Ecuador which are in a more initial stage than the Chilean model are now at the stage of implementing this law.” Results can be observed in other fields like training and education methods “we were able to exchange on methodologies with these countries as well. They collected this experience and it materialised in training activities for public officials and dissemination to civil society to be implemented in these countries.” The Chileans also provided technical support to Spain, one of the few European countries that previously lacked transparency law, during the preparatory work to implement transparency law. “It is likely that following this same logic of cooperation, we can also collaborate – we have the best disposition for it – with the implementation of this law in Spain,” said Mr Ferrada Carrasco.

The development of a transparency culture is about convincing people. Public officials need to be reassured that it is a step forward and that they are not living under a permanent cloud of suspicion that they have been involved in corrupt dealings. While, on the other hand, citizens need to know they are entitled to this right “because as long as citizens massively ask the government, ask the various government departments” concluded Mr Ferrada Carrasco “they will generate an environment of observation, citizen oversight, an environment of prioritization of what matters to the citizenship. It is a revolutionary change in the state administration”.