Conceptual framework National Public Investment System

The implementation of the SNIP becomes a concrete response to the Government of the Republic's intentions, in line with the modernization of the State and the decentralization of its functions. The importance of a SNIP lies in the fact that it orders the investment process, establishes clear and concrete rules for the treatment of each of its stages, dictates the appropriate regulations for its operation and emphasizes its obligatory nature, develops and makes the necessary instruments work and, above all, coordinates the efforts that until now have been made in isolation. The SNIP also establishes the staggered communication between government policies, the programming of investments, the allocation of resources to the projects that present the highest social profitability and the realization of the investment through the execution of projects. The first part of the paper deals with the diagnosis of the various factors that influence the public investment process in Guatemala and shows that the process has almost no strengths; on the contrary, there are many weaknesses, which are analyzed in depth.

The scope of the SNIP is then defined, as well as the objectives that served as the basis for its conceptualization. The functional and decentralized organization is considered, highlighting the basic decision-making, management and advisory functions, as well as the description of the legal environment on which the system is based. Next, reference is made to the environment in which the public investment process operates and the financing funds used to finance immersion initiatives. Subsequently, it is pointed out that the system requires the standardization of concepts, considering the project as the fundamental axis of the system, the characterization of the different types of projects and specifying the relevance of monitoring the life cycle of the project. Then, the components that support the process are identified and defined, such as the Standards and Instructions, Training and Dissemination, Project Formulation and Evaluation Methodologies and the Project Information System. It also discusses the linkage of the stages involved in the public investment process, i.e., the way in which the SNIP regulates some of them and the way in which it complements others. Finally, the strategy for the implementation of the SNIP is described, detailing the activities to be developed for each of its components.