Urban Analytics for Transparency and Decision Making

The Urban Analytics for Transparency and Decision-Making Capstone project with Columbia University  School of International and Public Affairs aims to strengthen transparency and accountability within the  Cascais Municipal Government while enhancing public trust in local institutions. Anti-corruption is  fundamental to effective urban governance, serving as a foundation for sustainable and equitable  development. As cities grow and urbanization accelerates, municipalities must adopt innovative, data driven approaches to address governance challenges and improve responsiveness to citizens’ needs. This  project, in collaboration with the Cascais Municipality, successfully developed a robust corruption risk  monitoring system by integrating comprehensive data collection and citizen perception insights that can be  used to inform policy making. To achieve this, the consulting team designed a Power BI-based tool that  tracks real-time progress across government departments. This database incorporates existing anticorruption metrics alongside revised indicators and perception data to more holistically assess corruption risks. 

To capture public perception, the team conducted stakeholder mapping and created surveys to be  disseminated among government employees and local citizens to measure how transparency and  accountability are perceived and evaluate the effectiveness of existing anti-corruption efforts. These insights are automatically integrated into a corruption risk portal, allowing government entities to monitor  trends and exact changes. Given legal requirements for public document accessibility, this project envisions  the portal eventually becoming public-facing, fostering civic engagement and enabling citizen participation  in anti-corruption efforts. By leveraging data-driven insights and participatory governance, this initiative  has enhanced municipal transparency in Cascais while establishing a scalable model for accountable urban  governance.