Gestión pública en una ciudad fronteriza colombiana: La mirada de sus habitantes

Abstract

Efficient public management seeks to generate transparent actions that meet the basic needs of the inhabitants. The objective of the article is to identify the perceptions of inhabitants of the border city of Cúcuta, in Colombia, on the management of their rulers in aspects related to education, employment, health, security and housing. The methodological component was determined by the quantitative paradigm, with a descriptive, non-experimental, cross-sectional design. A 16-item questionnaire was applied to 2,284 participants from the ten municipalities of the city. The results show that 63.5% of those surveyed stated that the city has worsened in the last year, in contrast to 27.5% who consider that it has improved after the application of government policies, while 9% did not respond. It is concluded that the dissatisfaction of the majority of the inhabitants with the management of the municipal government is mainly related to the high percentage of informal work, the lack of opportunities for formal employment and the deficient health and education systems. Problems that did not arise with the pandemic, but have been configured in previous years, given the little help that the municipal government has provided to mitigate social problems in the region.