PUBLIC POLICY OBSERVATORY OF THE METROPOLITAN REGION OF CAMPINAS/SP (MRC)

Abstract

Public policy observatories provide a means for society to obtain greater transparency in the taking of decisions at various levels of public administration: federal, state and municipality. They also provide a tool to support public authorities in decision making and a means for the training of professionals with critical and well-informed approaches to important economic and regional issues. In Brazil, such observatories are scarce and, in most cases, only concern the presentation of data and statistics, revealing little about the challenges of management at the different levels of government. Another shortage is the availability of publications on the process of structuring and implementing of an observatory. The present work concerns the structuring and implementation of a public policy observatory in the MRC. In addition to providing a tool to support public administration and the training of professionals, the observatory enables the community to participate in the debate concerning local development. The methodology used identified a lack of literature on the subject. The project was developed in two stages: the first involved the structuring of the observatory, with selection and definition of its components; in the second step, implementation involved the organization and systematization of the information obtained in the structuring step. After twenty-one months, two main results were obtained: a database and a social bulletin. Throughout this period, challenges were faced, including measurement of the impact of the intervention.