Agencia de Gobierno Electrónico y Sociedad de la Información y del Conocimiento

7- Single Registry of State Subsidies and Benefits for Companies

Brief description of the commitment: Creation of the Single and Standardized Registry of Subsidies and Benefits granted by the State to Companies (hereinafter, RUSBEE), through the formation of an inter-institutional working group within the Central Administration. This group will aim to define standards and formats for the basic information required in the support instruments, in order to ensure transparency, accountability, and facilitate access to information on the execution of public spending related to said subsidies and benefits.

Organization leading the commitment: Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining (MIEM).

Supporting Institutions/Organizations: Central Administration bodies that will be part of the RUSBEE.

Person responsible for the commitment: Rossanna González, Advisor to the Minister. Contact: rossanna.gonzalez@miem.gub.uy .

Technical head: Rosana Arancio, Strategic Planning and Interinstitutional Coordination, National Directorate of Industries (MIEM - DNI). Contact: rosana.arancio@miem.gub.uy ; Viviana Serrano, Quality and Change Management, General Directorate of the Secretariat (MIEM - DGS). Contact: viviana.serrano@miem.gub.uy .

Stakeholders:

1. Government: Presidency of the Republic, Agency for Electronic Government and Information and Knowledge Society (Agesic), Central Administration Bodies.
2. Civil Society: Non-Governmental Organizations, Chambers of Commerce and Private Sector Associations and citizens in general.
3. Other stakeholders: Agencies from the public sector: National Film and Audiovisual Agency of Uruguay (ACAU), National Development Agency (ANDE), National Research and Innovation Agency (ANII), Uruguayan Agency for International Cooperation (AUCI), Uruguay XXI, Academia, Public Companies and other interested parties or interest groups, for whom the information is useful in the performance of their activities.

Implementation period: September 2025 - December 2028.

Problem definition

What problem does the commitment intend to address?

The compartmentalization of information on instruments of support for the productive sector, which is requested and then published, hinders accountability for public spending and transparency in access to information, reducing the opportunity for applicants to access these instruments (due to lack of awareness), the development of job opportunities for citizens, and the development of capacities for companies.

The above affects companies, other legal entities that make up the country's productive and industrial network, other actors such as academia or civil society organizations, and society as a whole, since, lacking adequate information on accountability, these cannot verify the use of public funds, nor use this information for their purposes or interests.

What are the causes of the problem?

The insufficient integration of information on granted subsidies and benefits prevents the availability of centralized, clear, and timely public information which may be necessary to analyze the traceability and evolution of these subsidies and benefits. (This information is generated by the implementation of a set of public policies for productive development in different territories and by multiple agencies that simultaneously execute various plans, programs, and projects.) This lack of integration concerning information increases the risk of overlapping among different support instruments.

Description of the commitment

What has been done so far to solve the problem?

In 2024, the MIEM implemented a visualization tool to make the instruments and beneficiaries of its programs transparent and accountable in some specific Units.

This tool, associated with the implementation of a unified information system, provided a comprehensive view of the benefits offered by the different Executing Units. As a pilot project, it successfully displayed planned information, ensured transparency and accountability, and yielded valuable learning experiences in terms of opportunities for improvement and lessons learned.

What solution does it propose?

The aim is to expand and replicate, based on previous experiences of the MIEM, the formation of an Interinstitutional Committee or Working Group within the Central Administration, made up of the main bodies that grant subsidies and benefits, hereinafter RUSBEE, providing it with its own institutional structure.

This group will create a standard set of basic information that must be included in the guidelines for all support programs or benefits offered by its member institutions. The data generated from this standard will be published in an open format and incorporated into a viewer.

It intends to conduct dissemination activities, including launch events and awareness campaigns, to ensure stakeholder awareness and the success of at least one public participation initiative. These activities will seek to gather input from stakeholders on potential improvements, ideas, and levels of openness and data sharing that can be incorporated in later stages, thus generating a Roadmap for integrating these proposals.

What results do we want to achieve by implementing this commitment?

The aim is to achieve the trickle-down effect, through integrated information that will be a valuable contribution to the evaluation and monitoring of evidence-based public policies, based on the results achieved with said support, and their impacts in the territory (with a focus on decentralization and gender).

It also seeks to strengthen democracy, with an emphasis on transparency, in an Open Government model, through access to information on the use of public funds for all actors; an impact on people and companies (greater dissemination and better availability of organized and integrated information, greater opportunities for access and thus, greater capacity development), and an impact on public management (both in the design, as well as in the review and monitoring of the execution of public policy instruments for the productive and industrial development of the country).

Commitment analysis

How will the commitment promote transparency?

Transparency will be promoted by defining standardized formats that contain all the parameters of interest to the participating organizations, as well as the technical requirements that must be met to publish such information, including the need to be published in open data format, ensuring the periodicity of data updates and accessibility to reliable information.

How will the commitment help foster accountability?

The RUSBEE may operate in an expanded manner, inviting representatives from academia, organized civil society, workers' associations, and business chambers, in order to understand their needs and enrich or broaden the vision regarding said registry, seeking a language that should be understandable by the general public and easily accessible to publish information regarding how public funds are executed, their amounts, the concepts of the granting, and the natural or legal persons awarded them.

How will the commitment improve citizen participation in defining, implementing, and monitoring solutions?

Conducting outreach campaigns, workshops, and enabling communication channels to stimulate citizen participation and that of other stakeholders (for example, a public consultation on improvements) allows gathering ideas or suggestions regarding the degree of openness and type of information that the people in general is interested in knowing, creating a roadmap that establishes a traceability of the evolution of the changes and improvements to be implemented, ensuring the participation and interests of all parties involved.