Ibero-American countries work together to provide better customer service
Panama and Peru identified an opportunity to collaborate on capacity strengthening in their judicial and public service sectors.
As citizens’ demands increase, States prepare and reinforce their various capacities to better channel these requirements and make governmental responses more effective. One of the greatest challenges is related to promoting new mechanisms —or improving existing ones— to serve citizens.
Some countries have made progress in this area, but others still face difficulties in making information accessible in government websites, in generating statistical information efficiently and, hence, in making systems more user-friendly. Addressing these challenges would increase citizens’ trust in institutions, contributing to the transparency of public processes and to the alignment with SDG 16 (Peace, justice, and strong institutions).
Peru, for example, has strong capacities and best practices in this area, and it has transferred its experience in the framework of the project Implementing the user service policy in the Panamanian Judiciary, which was carried out as part of the Bilateral Program between Panama (recipient) and Peru (provider).
The initiative, implemented between 2023 and 2024, aimed to contribute to improve the access and the administration of justice services provided by the Panamanian Judiciary. To this end, Peru shared its experience in the “User Service Unit” (MAU by its Spanish acronym), and in the management (design and governance) of the process to develop the user service portal of the Peruvian Judiciary, as well as the guidelines for its implementation.
Different in-person and virtual activities were carried out, in which judicial officials were trained both in Panama and Peru. Two officials from the Panamanian Judiciary also completed an internship to learn about MAU’s protocols in Peru.
Likewise, at the end of 2023, the Panamanian Judiciary made a presentation to the National Commission for Judicial User Services of its Peruvian counterpart, which provided an overview of the Citizen Information and Service Center (CIAC by its Spanish acronym) that operates in the Judicial Branch of Panama. This country’s officials also presented the general features of the Access to Justice, Gender, and Human Rights Unit (UAJG by its Spanish acronym), which promotes the application of regulations regarding access to justice, gender perspective, and human rights.
It should also be noted that, in April 2024, both teams shared their experiences on access to justice and justice administration services. According to the Government of Peru, the activity enabled to broaden institutional knowledge about CIAC’s activities, to review the contents of training courses on the MAU, and it also provided information on the technological systems or services for users in the Caribbean country (Peruvian State Platform, 2024).
December 2025
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Source: SEGIB based on Agencies and Directorates-General for Cooperation and the Peruvian State Platform (2024).
