4.4 Creating trust at the local level: Principal stakeholders and innovative tools The fourth session on the theme of VSC2019, moderated by Johannes Krassnitzer, Director of the UNDP’s Art-GOLD initiative, began with two questions: how to build trust at the local level? What contribution can the Sustainable Development Goals make? Local governments are daily at the forefront between an increasingly complex and informed citizenship and a public sector that communicates with languages and tools that are still not easily accessible. This is why dialogue with international associations of mayors and local administrators, companies and NGOs working in the field of innovation, including digital innovation, can help to identify strategies to reconnect with citizens and their needs, always focusing on the key issues of Agenda 2030. The first speech concerned the relationship between citizens and the European Union. Over the last 10 years, as reported by Frédéric Vallier, Secretary General of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR)8, Euroscepticism has grown exponentially and populist parties have gained support. The reasons for this distrust are to be found in the frequent crises that have crossed the continent in recent years: the economic crisis, the environmental emergency, international conflicts and, last but not least, the migration crisis. In order to rebuild the relationship between European citizens and institutions, it is essential to create a “governance partnership”, which consists of sharing the search 8
CEMR has been working for a long time to recreate trust between local institutions and citizens, including through SDGs.
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for solutions to the challenges of our time. To go in this direction it is necessary to restore trust between the different levels of government, promoting cooperation and strengthening the capacities of local governments, not only through training for civil servants and politicians, but also by addressing the issue of fiscal decentralization to give local authorities the possibility to have their own resources and develop action plans. The second step must be about openness towards citizens, who are no longer willing to observe the work of politics, but want to participate. From Europe to Africa, the issue of trust in institutions is central to local politics. Emmanuel Djima Zossou, Mayor of Porto-Novo, the capital of Benin, is working in this direction, convinced that involving the people means facilitating their greater understanding of the decisions taken by governments. This is particularly true in countries like Benin, which has experienced a period of strong political instability, which ended in 1990 with the return to democracy, and which subsequently adopted decentralization policies with the aim of strengthening local authorities and re-establishing a relationship of trust with citizens. The first participatory mechanism put in place by the Municipality of Porto-Novo concerned the development of the Municipal Development Plan, which collected the needs and requests of the population through popular consultations in the districts and quarters of the city. Subsequently, the document was adopted by the institutions that are now bound by it. The theme of responsibility is linked to the creation of trust: in order to keep the citizens constantly informed about the progress of the Municipality, every 3 months “ordinary sessions” are organized, involving all the municipal councillors of PortoNovo. Additionally, at the instigation of civil society organizations, the municipal administration has
