"Conference-Slutting Toward Good Governance" | El Oso

On his blog, El Oso, David Sasaki has a snarky—but highly informative—post about all the conferences on “governance” going on in Latin America in the next few months. It’s a great roundup on the trends, topics, and themes of the “governance” agenda in the region (and beyond). Like, David, I also wonder how much actual governing takes place in between so many discussions and workshops about “governance.”

Here’s how it starts:

2012 looks a lot like a convenient excuse for the Latin American diplomatic jet set to rack up their American Express rewards points while in Cartagena, Brasilia, Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, Rio de Janeiro and elsewhere. Looking through a less cynical filter, 2012 could also be an important opportunity to build strong, international coalitions that eventually establish standards and roadmaps for the nascent open government movement. (The goal being, as Beth Noveck clearlyarticulates, that what we call “open government” today is what we will simply call “government” in the future.)

Let’s start with April, which should afford most Latin American diplomats enough rewards points to buy their own private jets by May. On April 14th and 15th the 34 heads of state of the Americas will be in Cartagena for the Sixth Summit of the Americas. Most of the mainstream media coverage will focus on whether or not Chavez and Dilma give each other a hug, but for those interested substance, the themes of the conference are: security, access to and use of technologies, natural disasters, poverty reduction, supportive cooperation, and regional integration. Most of the panels and workshops related to “access to and use of technologies” will focus on access to public services like education and healthcare. Colombia, the host of this year’s summit, has been making significant strides toward open government. Last year the ICT Ministry published three related reports: an evaluation of eGovernment for the private sector, a 12-step road map toward constructing an open government, and an Online Government assessment for 2010 – 2011.

I should note that David is, himself, a governance activist. He currently works for Omidyar Network.