“La sociedad civil no lava activos”, dice César Ricaurte, director de Fundamedios

Ecuador’s new Social Transparency Law has sparked strong negative reactions for imposing disproportionate bureaucratic controls on NGOs, equating them with financial entities. This measure, approved urgently without adequate technical debate, overburdens civil society administratively, discourages free association, and threatens the survival of small community initiatives, thereby weakening the social fabric and citizen participation. From the perspective of transparency and state oversight, critics argue that the law is ineffective because it is based on a flawed justification: combating money laundering. Technical evidence indicates that NGOs pose a low to medium risk, while the truly problematic sectors fall outside the scope of this regulation. Consequently, the blanket regulation ignores existing data and prioritizes political surveillance over genuine improvements in audit mechanisms and coordination among state institutions. This conflict is relevant to the open data community because it illustrates how opacity and poor data quality can lead to abusive regulations that hinder real transparency. The law exemplifies a “formal transparency” approach that demands more reporting without ensuring useful access to information, thereby complicating effective accountability. Legal and political resistance to this norm underscores the need for public information management to be grounded in robust technical evidence to protect fundamental rights and foster genuine civic participation.

Source: eldiario.ec
Published on 2025-09-01

“La sociedad civil no lava activos”, dice César Ricaurte, director de Fundamedios

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