CoST Guatemala | CoST – Infrastructure Transparency Initiative

Member since 2012

Prior to CoST: Public infrastructure in context

Historically, Guatemala has suffered from a lack of accountability within the infrastructure sector, resulting in significant time and cost overruns. Despite concerted efforts to develop a more transparent approach to infrastructure governance, Guatemala continues to face challenges in this field.
For example, in the area of investment, hurdles remain. Guatemala lacks a competitive environment for private companies to operate in and is largely reliant on foreign investment to fund public works. The high levels of debt among public bodies mean that public infrastructure projects are often underfunded, with negative repercussions for quality.

CoST Guatemala: How it all began

Guatemala became the first Latin American country to join CoST during its pilot stage in December 2010. It confirmed its membership in 2012 when CoST was officially launched. Since then, it has operated with the support of the government, the private sector, academia, and civil society. It also works closely with international agencies, including the UK Department for International Development, the World Bank, USAID, Open Contracting Partnership (OCP), and Hivos.

Prior to joining CoST, a baseline study was carried out in Guatemala, which analysed the degree of transparency within public infrastructure. While procuring entities in Guatemala are legally required to publish 87% of project information, the data publication rate for the 16 projects assessed in the study stood at just 34%. With this as a starting point, CoST Guatemala began collaborating with procuring entities to promote the publication and analysis of infrastructure data in line with the CoST Infrastructure Data Standard (CoST IDS).

Multi-stakeholder working in Guatemala

CoST brings together stakeholder groups with different perspectives and backgrounds from across government, private sector and civil society. Through each national programme’s Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG), these entities can guide the delivery of CoST and pursue infrastructure transparency and accountability within a neutral forum.

CoST Guatemala’s MSG is made up of the following entities:

Public sector

The Ministry of Public Finance; the Ministry of Communications, Infrastructure and Housing; the National Association of Municipalities of the Republic of Guatemala; the Comptroller General of Accounts; and the Secretariat of Planning and Programming of the Presidency

Private sector
Guatemalan Chamber of Construction, the Chamber of Industry of Guatemala

Civil society
Citizen and Guatemalan Action

International organisations
The World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank

Publication of data in Guatemala

Publication of data in Guatemala

The data publication process ensures that data about the purpose, scope, costs, and execution of infrastructure projects is open and accessible to the public, and that the data is published in a timely manner.

As the findings of the baseline study indicate, data publication compliance has been historically low in Guatemala. However, since CoST Guatemala began its work, there has been a significant increase in publication rates using the CoST IDS, from 34% to 58%. The CoST IDS requires 40 data points to be shared throughout the project cycle and presented in a format that is accessible and understandable for all. In Guatemala, the CoST IDS has been adapted to the country’s context, and 31 data points have been adopted following the ratification of a legal mandate for data disclosure in 2017. The increase in published data we have seen in Guatemala will no doubt have been buoyed by this.

Changing attitudes towards data publication at an institutional level have not been without their challenges. Still, over time, there has been an increasing acceptance of CoST’s objectives within procuring entities, and the publication of data practices has progressed accordingly.

Legal mandate on data publication

In 2017, the Guatemalan Congress of the Republic, the country’s unicameral legislature, ratified Decree no. 50-2016, which mandates the publication of 31 of the 40 CoST IDS data points through Guatecompras, the national e-procurement portal. This applies to all projects across all procuring entities, and this legislation was achieved as a direct result of multi-sectoral cooperation and the work of CoST Guatemala.

Guatecompras now holds information on over 1,000 projects in line with the CoST IDS, published by more than 300 procuring entities. CoST Guatemala is currently in discussions with representatives from the Ministry of Finance to determine the next steps for incorporating all 40 CoST IDS data points into Guatecompras.

Training

Training makes up a core part of CoST Guatemala’s stakeholder engagement. In 2017, CoST Guatemala signed an agreement with the National Association of Municipalities to provide ongoing training to authorities, officials, and technicians from more than 250 municipalities nationwide. That year, 1,200 government officials were trained. To date, officials from 237 municipalities have been trained. CoST Guatemala has also published a data publication manual for the operators of Guatemala’s online data platform, Guatecompras, to facilitate and guide the publication of information on the portal.

In addition, CoST Guatemala has developed training sessions for local governments on compliance with the CoST IDS as part of an inter-institutional cooperation project with the Municipal Urban Government and USAID.

Independent review in Guatemala

We promote accountability through the CoST independent review (assurance) process – an independent review of the published data by assurance teams based within CoST memberships.

Since its inception, CoST Guatemala has produced nine assurance reports on public works projects, and it is currently finalizing its tenth report, which focuses on 12 healthcare infrastructure projects. This latest report forms part of Guatemala’s Open Government commitment, reinforcing the country’s efforts to promote transparency and accountability in public investment.

To date, CoST Guatemala has reviewed more than 100 public infrastructure projects. The independent review team has also made several recommendations to enhance the governance of infrastructure projects in Guatemala, including modifications to the Guatecompras website.

Social accountability in Guatemala

Social accountability and civic engagement ensure that information on public infrastructure projects is made publicly available. CoST collaborates with stakeholders, including the media and civil society, to disseminate the findings of the assurance process and ensure that decision-makers are held accountable.

CoST Guatemala’s varied public engagement programme includes capacity building workshops for procuring entities, publicising reports through radio and print media, training civil society organisations, and holding bilateral meetings.

Training

CoST Guatemala’s social audit programme – which trains citizens on the key tenets of infrastructure project monitoring – has gone from strength to strength in recent years.

In 2020, over 570 civil society and media officials were trained by the programme, including 180 university students who were introduced to social auditing as part of a USAID urban governance programme.

Throughout 2020, CoST Guatemala also supported the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the Government of Spain on a project expanding water supply and sanitation across the department of San Marcos. CoST Guatemala worked to strengthen local oversight of project delivery – and increase accountability – through social audit training, which enables communities to monitor levels of transparency and the quality of projects being delivered locally. As a result, citizens were able to flag instances where critical information relating to budgets and feasibility studies was missing. They also monitored the delivery of environmental impact assessments, a crucial tool in a country highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and drought.

Collaborative learning

Alongside Hivos, the British Embassy in Guatemala, OCP, Data School, and Article 19, CoST Guatemala has convened four working groups to address issues relating to transparency in infrastructure. 75 people from 58 institutions attended these sessions, providing a total of 85 solutions to the 18 issues discussed.

CoST Guatemala aims to promote short-, medium-, and long-term solutions based on the dialogue fostered during these discussions, which will relate to infrastructure governance in Guatemala.