What a marathon this year has been for OGP Local. We brought local voices together and spoke louder than ever at a record three OGP regional meetings across three months in Santo Domingo, Rome and Marrakech. No other OGP event previous to these regional meetings has had so many local governments and organizations participants. I’m excited to share that in January we’re launching a series of interviews from the conversations we had with local reformers this year. You can see a sneak peek here below. 

Now, let me share with you three highlights from this year in OGP Local: 

2022 Action Plans

As I’m writing this post, 10 new OGP action plans from the OGP Local 2022 cohort have been delivered: Corrientes (City), Argentina; Cartagena de indias, Colombia; Asturias, Spain; Žilina (Region), Slovak Republic; Hamburg, Germany; Valencian Community, Spain; Novi Pazar, Serbia; Detmold, Germany; Tarkwa-Nsuaem, Ghana; and Carthage, Tunisia. Here are a few of the commitment topics: strengthening city nurseries to building networks of civil society and other local non-governmental organizations, improving accessibility to mobility services, promoting the use of clear language, and more. Find more highlights from each plan in this Twitter thread. 

Local Evidence

A few weeks ago OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) held IRM Week, a space to deep dive into findings from the global community of researchers on improving OGP action plans. The IRM shared findings on how to create stronger open government reforms at the local level based on the 2018-2021 OGP Local cohort. The IRM found that embedding government feedback leads to better results, participation works best when it addresses the day-to-day challenges of citizens, and open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... is most impactful when it supports citizen use of the released data.

The IRM recommends ensuring that reforms are politically feasible and aligned with citizens’ priorities; aligning reforms objectives and activities to political and budgetary cycles; designing specific, measurable policy with clear outcomes; focusing on the demand side of open government, and designing a mechanism for the government to provide feedback in how citizens proposals are taken into account. 

As you may know, since 2021, OGP Local has adopted a new way to track the progress of action plans. Monitoring bodies, which are selected by local governments and civil society organizations, provide feedback on the co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive... of the action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... and its implementation. We look forward to sharing with you the evidence that this new approach is bringing to over 100 OGP Local members.

New Collaborations

2022 was also a great year to keep expanding the impact of local open government through powerful partnerships and new opportunities.

This year we launched the OGP Local Circles, communities of practice on specific themes. So far we have launched a Local Circle on Climate Action led by the government of Scotland (United Kingdom) and Buenos Aires (Argentina) and a Local Circle on the Agenda 2030 and SDGs led by the government of Cordoba (Argentina) and the city of São Paulo (Brazil).

In Rome, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Association of Ukrainian Cities and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe to support  the reconstruction of Ukrainian communities. The process will require ensuring transparency, inclusiveness, and accountability and facilitating the national-local dialogue in the delivery of open government action plans. In Marrakech, local leaders from Africa and the Middle East launched a Regional Network of Local Open Government.

Finally, at the C40 Summit, OGP supported local leaders from Buenos Aires (Argentina), São Paulo (Brazil), the Metropolitan Region of Santiago (Chile), and Quezón (Indonesia) to sign the Buenos Aires Declaration, where leaders reaffirmed their commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... to climate action at the local level through open government approaches. More local leaders will be invited to sign this declaration and use the OGP Local Circle on Climate Action as a space for peer learning, exchange and knowledge sharing.

We are looking forward to 2023, and excited to see that the movement for open local democracy is growing, and we are eager to know more of you. Our community of practice is open and you don’t need to be an OGP member to be part of it. If your municipality is working on open government issues or needs support if your organization wants to connect with other global practitioners, join our community!