Annual Implementation Plan Year 1: Partners for Transparency

The purpose of the activity is to support locally driven solutions to increase transparency and accountability and effectively reduce corruption in Colombia. The activity engages both public sector counterparts and a broad range of local partners, including civil society organizations, media, business associations, and advocacy groups. The theory of change for the activity is based on the assumption that strengthening public sector efforts to increase transparency and combat corruption, combined with local partner participation and collaboration, will lead to an incremental improvement in citizen trust in the government, better use of public funds, and delivery of key public goods and services. The activity aims to achieve five strategic objectives over a five-year period: advancing national-level government transparency and accountability initiatives, promoting local-level civic participation, strengthening oversight and control institutions' efforts to fight corruption, promoting a culture of transparency and accountability, and promoting local partner capacity and sustainability. The activity will be implemented in five regions, comprising 15 municipalities and three districts, which were selected based on conversations with local partners and USAID/Colombia. The regions were chosen due to their priority status in the Country Development Cooperation Strategy, the presence of Development Programs with Territorial Focus, and the need for support to enhance integrity and transparency. Although the security situation in Colombia is unstable, the partners confirmed the possibility of working at varying levels of intensity in accordance with actual conditions and with continuous assessments of security and accessibility. The organizational structure of the activity has five areas: Technical, Regional, Operations, Communications, and M&E. Currently, there are seven staff members hired or with start dates established, and two additional staff members have been identified. The team expects to engage them in the coming weeks, including technical directors and regional coordinators. The activity does not have an estimated date for the opening of the office in Bogotá in the short term due to the ongoing pandemic and local guidelines and requirements. The activity faces several critical assumptions, including the selection of a new Inspector General with close ties to the current Government of Colombia and the ruling political party, which may impact the pace and quality of the intervention. Additionally, the security situation in Colombia is deteriorating, with the assassination of social leaders and massacres in rural areas, which affects the implementation of the activity and presents risks that the project will carefully analyze to guarantee physical security for the team, partners, and beneficiaries. The activity will apply an accountability systems approach, which involves working with public sector counterparts and local partners to strengthen oversight and control institutions' efforts to fight corruption. The activity will also engage in monitoring, evaluation, and learning, as well as collaborating, learning, and adapting, to ensure that the intervention is effective and sustainable. The activity will coordinate with other USAID/Colombia activities and the Government of Colombia to ensure alignment and complementarity.