Mapping Participatory Digital Governance
Exploring organisations and projects that give communities voice in governing digital technologies
The Open Government Partnership’s Digital Governance challenge calls for national and local governments to commit to “strengthen transparency and public oversight of AI, automated-decision making, and data protection frameworks” including by “creating specific public participation opportunities”.
To support this, we were commissioned to carry out a mapping of organisations that are developing and leading participatory digital governance activities, and to identify possible examples of participatory digital governance that might inspire new commitments and actions.
This project ran from November 2024 to March 2025.
Resources
This preliminary mapping study, carried out for the Open Government Partnership, seeks to identify the organisations and institutions leading work and thinking on participatory digital governance, and to identify examples of promising practice that might be used in case studies, communications or peer-learning, with a view to informing future SMART recommendations for reforms that could be explored by Open Government Partnership stakeholders.
Events
In a fragmented AI governance landscape shaped more by economic interests than public concerns, how can diverse voices contribute to shaping AI strategies, policies and frameworks? In this fishbowl session at the Open Government Partnership Global Summit we explored challenges and learning from across the world on approaches to give citizens greater agency in shaping the future of artificial intelligence in both public and private sectors.
Opinion
As the the Open Government Community, Connected by Data amongst them, meet in Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain this week, they will reaffirm a commitment to the Open Government Declaration, with it’s central focus on supporting civic participation. In the new Vitoria-Gasteiz Declaration they will also highlight the need to link open government with broader global agendas, including the governance of “artificial intelligence, data, and emerging technologies”, providing renewed backing for the idea that “public participation in civic life” must extend to the public decisions about data and digital.
Over March 2025 we’re mapping out organisations and projects across the globe that are giving communities a voice in the governance of digital technology in public or private sectors as part of a rapid research project for the Open Government Partnership.