Promoting Online Transparency to Help Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals: An Empirical Study of Local Governments in Latin America
Metadata
Show full item recordEditorial
MDPI
Materia
Sustainability information Transparency Sustainable development objectives Local governments Latin American countries
Date
2021-02-08Referencia bibliográfica
Guerrero-Gómez, T.; Navarro-Galera, A.; Ortiz-Rodríguez, D. Promoting Online Transparency to Help Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals: An Empirical Study of Local Governments in Latin America. Sustainability 2021, 13, 1837. [https://doi.org/10.3390/su13041837]
Sponsorship
European Commission; Junta de Andalucia B1-SEJ-317-UGR18Abstract
Although transparency on the sustainability of public services is an issue of urgent interest
to both governments and academics, previous research in this area has mainly focused on developed
European countries, and has paid insufficient attention to areas that are still developing, such as many
Latin American countries. The aim of this study is to identify factors that promote transparency on
sustainability by local governments in Latin America, in the view that greater transparency will help
them meet the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Therefore, using content analysis
and following the GRI guidelines, we analyze the economic, social and environmental information
published on the websites of 200 large local governments in 18 Latin American countries. In addition,
using linear regression and calculating the corresponding Spearman coefficients, we analyze the influence
of idiosyncratic and systemic variables on the volume of information disclosed. Our findings
show that certain factors—population size, education level, unemployment, the quality of legislation
and political corruption—affect transparency on sustainability. The conclusions drawn from this
analysis enable us to identify useful measures for enhancing transparency on sustainability, including
the reform of transparency laws and the analysis and disclosure of citizens’ information demands.