2021 IOPD Conference

The meeting of the Policy Council took place after a session that gathered UCLG and many networks of local and regional governments, including UCLG regional sections and the support of ICLEI, to call on city-to-city cooperation to ensure the success of the Paris Agreement. The Policy Council met at the end of the Local and Regional Governments Day, and in it participants weaved the relations between the agendas of the various Policy Councils, by arguing for the need to consider resilience across different agendas and multilateral processes, connecting with the Voluntary Local Reviews and the upcoming Stockholm+50, which will count with active participation of Local and Regional Governments.

Resilience and preparedness to crises, which themselves are topics that are linked with our rights and inequality agenda, were some of the key issues addressed as critical to address informality and to achieve territorial equality in urban, rural and arctic areas, for current and future generations.

2021 IOPD Conference

The conference of the International Observatory of Participatory Democracy (IOPD) had to adapt in 2021 to the pandemic context and the limitations for effective global mobilization. For this reason, the event organized by the city of Cocody and the technical secretariat of the IOPD had two strong moments: the face-to-face sessions that took place in Abidjan from October 20 to 22 and the virtual sessions from November 29 to December 2.

The theme of this edition was sustainable cities/territories and participatory democracy and the sessions held in Cocody were structured around four lines of work: local economic development; environment and citizen participation; right to the City; governance and participatory democracy. Throughout the different sessions: conferences, round tables and workshops, the need to involve citizens in the transformations and policies necessary to achieve more sustainable territories and cities in terms of equity and respect for the environment was confirmed. To achieve effective and efficient participation, local governments must take a leading role in collaboration with the academic and scientific world and with the existing civil society.

The event had a strong impact on the host country, as it was widely attended by local Ivorian authorities, as well as representatives of the national government. All confirmed the need to reinforce political and financial decentralization so that local governments have the capacity to be first-level actors in economic development with social justice and respect for the environment. Local governments need more and better