On invitation of the IDB, Mrs. Novella Alcantra – Majana attended the the 2nd Regional Meeting of the Community of Practice of the InvestmentMap Initiative and the the 7th Meeting of the OECD-IDB Public Integrity Network, held from November 27 to December 01, 2023 in the city of Lima, Peru.

 The Regional Meeting of the Community of Practice was held on November 29 and allowed an exchange of experiences between public officials from the region and leading experts from civil society, academia, and the private sector, with the goal of deepening the implementation of best practices in transparency and integrity through digital technologies. This event was held in the framework of the larger meeting of the Public Integrity Network, in parallel with the Annual International Conference on Integrity (CAII) and the General Assembly of the Latin American and Caribbean Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (OLACEFS).

 The Community of Practice was created as a vehicle for dialogue to further develop InvestmentMap as the main technological tool for the dissemination of data and accountability to citizens on the management of public resources in Latin America and the Caribbean. To this end, countries that already have years of experience in implementing InvestmentMap, as well as countries that have recently shown interest in implementing this initiative.

 The InvestmentMap Community proposes to work through 3 central axes: 

 

  1. Equity, inclusion, and environmental sustainability will discuss how InvestmentMap has contributed to and can continue to promote this approach in government policies in favor of gender equity and diversity, climate change, and environmental sustainability. 
  2. Data-driven planning:We will discuss how InvestmentMap can support and improve data-driven decision making and planning, enabling the closing of infrastructure, social and environmental gaps, and the feasibility and prioritization of national investment programs.  
  3. Technology and Innovation will discuss how InvestmentMap can strengthen the integrity of public resources by using artificial intelligence to identify irregularities in public procurement or facilitate citizen participation, among other use cases.

  The initial exploration requires identifying processes, information systems, and data sets that meet the requirements of the EITI standard. For this, it is essential to go through the different phases of the InvestmentMap platform construction methodology. The government of Suriname has formalized the request to join Investment Map

The work will be divided into 7 phases. Suriname expressed interest and is now in phase 0 to be completed:

  • The Government of Suriname appoints a Project Manager who will be the functional focal point with the IDB Product Owner.
  • Identification of government focal points at the technical levels 

 After this phase is completed, Suriname will move on to the next ones.