El derecho de participación ciudadana y el plan parroquial de desarrollo de GAD Poaló

Abstract

In Ecuador, the Organic Code of Territorial Organization, Autonomy and Decentralization establishes the right of citizen participation as a transversal axis at the time of formulating the parish development plan, however, the ephemeral participation of citizens has led the parish authorities to establish development plans different from the realities of their jurisdiction, a situation that is worrying for the fulfillment of goals and objectives. In this sense, the objective of the research is to carry out an evaluation that allows us to appreciate how the right of citizen participation affects the parish development plan of the GAD Poaló. To this end, the type of descriptive research is applied that determines and details the importance of citizen participation in the elaboration of the development plan, applying a mixed methodology based on a qualitative study and then establishing statistical data in a quantitative way. In this way, this study is framed within the line of research of public policies, law and society. This leads to establishing as a main result that citizen participation in the Poaló parish is scarce due to the fact that the parish authorities have not established spaces for participation in planning, as well as the deep-rooted representativeness that exists on the part of the neighborhood presidents and community representatives, preventing other social sectors from being included in the planning process, constituting a weakening of citizen power. Concluding that rural parish governments have the obligation to strengthen the participation of citizens and by means of normative acts to regulate the instances of participation so that historically excluded groups are part of the planning and to build a parish plan of efficient development aimed at creating progress in rural areas, seeking equal opportunities and the improvement of the quality of life.