Paraguay

Aty Guasú Community Meetings

City/State/Region
Begin – End: 2008 – ongoing
Name of organization in charge: Ministerio de SaludUnidades de Salud de la Familia
Type of organization in charge: government
Level: local

Impact

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Implementation: was the innovation effectively, partially or not put into practice at all?

Fulfillment of Aims: were the goals of the innovation completely, partially or not achieved at all?

Output: has the innovation generated recommendations, initiatives, decisions or policies?

Outcome: if there were a policy output, was it enacted or implemented?

Implementation: yes
Fulfillment of Democratic Innovation’s aim: yes
Output: -
Policy Outcome: -

The community meetings, or "Aty Guasú" for their name in Guarani, are organized by the Family Health Units (USF) in localities in different departments of the country. They are based on health policies promoted since 2008. The USF consist of teams of professionals from the medical sector. They use an integral and community based approach to the prevention and treatment of diseases as well as health surveillance. In addition, they are in charge of organizing meetings with community members and local authorities with the aim of publicizing the scope of their activities and listening to citizens? opinions of citizens about the services as well as their needs. The different experiences showed that during these meetings citizen?s evaluated different aspects of the services offered; for example, citizen?s raised issues concerned with the availability and quality of care provided by health professionals, or specific requests such as ambulances or the presence of specialists. These meetings seek to promote participation and improve the quality of life of the community by strengthening health provisions.

Institutional design

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Formalization: is the innovation embedded in the constitution or legislation, in an administrative act, or not formalized at all?

Frequency: how often does the innovation take place: only once, sporadically, or is it permanent or regular?

Mode of Selection of Participants: is the innovation open to all participants, access is restricted to some kind of condition, or both methods apply?

Type of participants: those who participate are individual citizens, civil society organizations, private stakeholders or a combination of those?

Decisiveness: does the innovation takes binding, non-binding or no decision at all?

Co-governance: is there involvement of the government in the process or not?

Formalization: only backed by a governmental program or policy
Frequency: sporadic
Mode of selection of participants: open
Type of participants: citizens
Decisiveness: democratic innovation yields a non-binding decision
Co-Governance: yes

Means

Deliberation
Direct Voting
E-Participation
Citizen Representation

Ends

Accountability
Responsiveness
Rule of Law
Political Inclusion
Social Equality

Policy cycle

Agenda setting

Formulation and decision-making

Implementation

Policy Evaluation