Local Roundup | November 2023

Here’s our monthly roundup of updates from the OGP Local community for November 2023.

OPEN GOVERNMENT PROCESSES

• Chihuahua, Mexico, delivered its 2023-2024 OGP action plan, which includes commitments to prevent social violence, encourage citizen participation in entrepreneurship, and establish a collaborative multidisciplinary group for rural decision planning and monitoring.
• Khoni, Georgia, is advancing on its OGP commitment to create a mechanism and space for youth participation. 46 young people applied to join the Youth Council out of which 21 were selected to take part in a training course.
• Aragón, Spain, launched a public consultation for the development of the project that regulates telecommuting for Justice Administration personnel. LAAAB is also encouraging citizens to join CIBICO, a process that promotes citizen experimentation, collaboration, and innovation for climate action.
• Catalonia, Spain, carried out the inaugural session of its Climate Citizen Assembly. The Climate Citizen Assembly will generate suggestions to address climate change in the energy and agri-food sector.
• Glasgow, UK opened a consultation to shape the city’s development plan and launched a new innovation action plan. The innovation action plan sets out a route map to accelerate the innovation economy and was developed in consultation with 120 senior stakeholders from business, academia, the third sector, the investor community, and local and national government.
• Bogotá, Colombia, has initiated the 2023 Participatory Budgeting Process. Residents can interact with Chatico, the virtual assistant, to determine the allocation of public budget for projects in their jurisdiction.
• Peñalolen, Chile, is conducting a participatory process for the update of the Communal Regulatory Plan and invites its citizens to actively participate in the initiative.
• This month, Juliet Swann, Policy Officer at Transparency International UK was appointed as Scotland’s open government civil society chair.

EVENTS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

• Reformers from 14 local governments in Kenya participated in the OGP Local Learning Retreat, organized by Mzalendo Trust to broaden the open government agenda at the local level.
• OGP Local members São Paulo, Osasco, and Santa Catarina in Brazil led a dynamic discussion on open government as the future of public administration at the  22nd Conference of the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy (IOPD).
• Valencia, Spain, received the Spanish Digital Information award for its OGP Local action plan.
• Córdoba, Argentina, shared its experience using open government as a tool to implement Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda at an international seminar on Local Open Government organized by CEPAL in Chile.
• This month, the 10th edition of the Public Innovation Congress took place, organized by the NovaGob Foundation and the City Council of Madrid. Explore the sessions and delve into the highlights.
• The Association of Cities of Ukraine shared the experiences of Ukrainian OGP Local members in a series of webinars on Ukraine’s reconstruction, organized in partnership with the Association of Municipalities of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

OPPORTUNITIES AND TOOLS

• The Climate Democracy Accelerator from People Powered is looking for a new cohort of government and civil society leaders from around the world interested in running high-impact participatory climate action projects. Learn more about the program and apply here.
• Buenos Aires, Argentina, launched the City and Childhood Index to promote the participation of children and adolescents in the design of public policies as part of their third OGP Local action plan.
• This year, the Latin American NGO based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Democracia en Red, developed the project “Pesticides Introduced Silently.” This is a platform that provides information and tools to understand and counteract the impact of agrochemicals on our bodies and communities.

If you missed any of the previous roundups, you can now find them here!