On 23rd November last, an extraordinary meeting of the network's members was held in the city of Porto Alegre, for the purpose of collectively debating the organisation's future strategic lines, its goals and producing a Work Plan for 2012. The meeting also dealt with the design of the 12th OIDP Conference, which will also be held in the city of Porto Alegre under the title of "Democracy in the City and Major Urban Transformations", given that the Gaucho capital currently holds the OIDP Presidency.

The meeting was hosted by the Citizens' Participation Commissioner of the Barcelona City Council, Carles Agustí, representing the Technical Secretariat and the Political and Local Governance Coordination Secretary of the Prefecture of Porto Alegre, Cézar Busatto, in representation of the OIDP Presidency.

Carles Agustí stressed the determination of the Barcelona City Council to maintain the leadership of the organisation's Technical Secretariat, on the basis of a renewed investment centred on the production of knowledge and the exchange of experiences (R&D), which he then went on to propose for debate by the network's members attending the meeting. Having presented the strategic priorities with regard to the future, the main agreements reached were as follows:

• The OIDP will recover and place emphasis on its original goal of becoming a space for the production of knowledge and the exchange of useful experiences for the towns and cities that make up the network.
• Within this framework links with the academic world must be encouraged and intensified.
• This qualitative leap will be accompanied by a commitment that is shared with the city of Porto Alegre, which will become the regional antenna of the OIDP in Latin America. It is also agreed that the organisation be given a new direction, decentralising its structure in this territory and, or so it is anticipated, in the near future also in Africa. This change in the organisational model is a response to the desire to offer the members of the network the best and most complete knowledge produced within the territory in each of the different regions of the world.
• In a global world, such as today's, the OIDP cannot exist in isolation, it has become necessary to collaborate with other international networks and organisations.
• Having overcome the challenge of coming into existence within the framework of an URB-AL project, work must now be done on diversifying the composition of the network members in order for it to continue to be a reflection of the world as it is today.
• The network of Local Participatory Democracy Observatories must also be reactivated, as a tool to stimulate knowledge in the field of participatory democracy at the local level.

In conclusion, the OIDP assumes the challenge of serving as a reflection in matters of participatory democracy at a worldwide level, in order to innovate and to recommend specific policies to public administrations, preferably local, throughout the world and to make the exchange of experiences its main working base.

6th IOPD Distinction "Best Practice in Citizens' Participation"candidacies submission

The International Observatory for Participatory Democracy (IOPD) encourages you to present a candidacy application for the 6th Edition of the "Best Practice in Citizens' Participation" Distinction given for initiatives developed at the local level.   The IOPD Distinction for Best Practice in Citizen Participation has been created to recognize those innovative experiences and ideas in the area of participative democracy that promote participation and involvement of citizens in processes of elaborating and implementing public policies.

  The invitation is open to all local governments, municipal entities and extra-municipal entities that are members of the IOPD and have promoted a citizen participation initiative within the last four years that is still in effect at the time of the candidacy application.  

The award will be presented next 11th June 2012 in Porto Alegre (Brasil) within the framework of the XII IOPD Conference.

The presentation period for applications will began on January 15th and ends on February 15th, 2012. 

The award basis and the submit form are already available in this website section.