Open Up Contracting program partners become selected winners of 2018 CivicTech4Democracy

August 20, 2018

We are happy to share that two of the partners in the Open Contracting program in Guatemala were selected winners of the 2018 CivicTech4Democracy. Plaza Publica and Ojo con mi pisto have been making a lot of impact in Guatemala in the past years, their journalism has been critical for the fight against corruption and impunity in Guatemala. We are proud to have them as partners.

 

Laboratorio de Medios / Ojo con mi Pisto – CivicTech4Democracy profile

Laboratorio de Medios’s ojoconmipisto.org is a journalistic project that promotes transparency and the fight against corruption, inspects how local governments use municipal funds and encourages citizen participation in Guatemala. It seeks to share with citizens information and data on how their municipality contracts work. Ojoconmipisto provides tools to journalists, through training and accompaniment, so that they are the ones who control the quality of spending of their municipalities.

Read more at http://www.ojoconmipisto.com/open-contracting/

Plaza Publica – CivicTech4Democracy profile 

laberintodelpoder.com addresses the lack of information on networks of power in Central America. They want to make it easier for journalists and researchers to investigate facts and foster transparency. laberintodelpoder.com aggregates and opens databases, automates visualizations, and showcases investigations related to beneficial ownership, influence peddling, tax elusion, wrongful public procurement, media concentration and hidden subsidies. More and more researchers are asking us for access to the data, since the platform was released two months ago. Thanks to Laberinto del Poder, the four Guatemalan biggest sugar companies have had to pay due taxes and their land ownership reassessed by government.

Read more at https://laberintodelpoder.com/

CivicTech4Democracy

CivicTech4Democracy is the European Union’s global competition showcasing democratic innovation by Citizens for Citizens across the world. Every day, everywhere, citizens invent new ways of bringing democracy closer to the people. CivicTech4Democracy will reward projects that have successfully used digital tools to advance democracy and were implemented sometime between 2010 and now.

The six winning projects will be showcased in Brussels on 17 September 2018.