Action plans are at the core of participation in OGP Local. They are created by combining the forces of the City and civil society, working together to define ambitious commitments across a range of issues.
Members are considered to be officially participating in OGP Local once they have begun to consult with civil society organizations to develop an action plan.
Step 1: Build a Team & Select a Forum ← We are here
1.1 Build a Team
The goal is to assemble a strong team at the beginning of the co-creation process with the core competencies to coordinate and drive the action plan, independent of the commitments.
1.2 Select a Forum
The goal is to identify an existing or new forum to enable regular multi-stakeholder participation in the co-creation and implementation of the action plan.
Forum is a space for participation in the development, implementation and review of the action plan that brings together public officials and non-governmental stakeholders.
1.3 Select a Monitoring Body
The Monitoring Body is a person or group of people or an organization, responsible for promoting learning and impact by independently evaluating and assessing the co-creation process and the results achieved from the implementation of the commitments.
They are responsible for collecting evidence, assessing processes and results, and submitting reports.
Step 2: Develop a Roadmap
The goal is to determine the steps, timeline, and stakeholders needed to execute your action plan.
What is and what is not a roadmap?
✓ A roadmap is a high-level plan that outlines an overarching objective and the major steps to achieve it.
✓ It is a communication tool for conveying a project's strategy, facilitating team coordination, and garnering stakeholders' approval.
✓ It is flexible and can be modified to ensure the delivery of the action plan.
✗ It is not a list of tasks since it provides an overall vision of steps, responsibilities, and timelines.
✗ It is not a project management tracker, which defines tasks and associated attributes by summarizing the core efforts needed for planned results.
Step 3: Raise Awareness
The goal is to share what is open government, OGP Local, and engage stakeholders in the action plan process.
Raising awareness among local government peers, citizens and non-governmental stakeholders is imperative for the action plan process.
Step 4: Identify and Prioritize Opportunity Areas
The goal is to identify a broad set of problems that can be addressed with open government approaches as part of the City's action plan.
Starting by identifying problems that need to be addressed can help to ensure that the action plan is relevant and beneficial to the lives of citizens.
The next step is a prioritization of the problems that the City will focus on in the context of the action plan. Prioritization of issues to be addressed may be necessary as each OGP Local member can only have up to 5 commitments at a time in their action plan.
Step 5: Identify Solutions
The goal is to select the open government actions and milestones that will contribute to the problem's solution. These solutions need to be specific and measurable, while they also need to be grounded in the principles of open governance, i.e. transparency, public accountability and civic participation.
Step 6: Build a Commitment Support Network
The goal is to engage the actors, inside and outside the City's administration, that will support the adoption and implementation of a commitment, by seeking Collaboration between actors from different backgrounds and communities and tapping into their shared interests, experiences, goals or values.
Step 7: Draft Commitments and Strategic Vision
The goal is to write an action plan that brings together the commitments and aligns them under one cohesive vision.
Strategic Vision allows to develop a cohesive narrative which will:
- Provide a space to review engagement of the co-creation process.
- Establish key actions for monitoring of commitments during implementation.
Step 8: Validate and Approve
The goal is to secure the endorsement of the action plan from the key stakeholders and seek internal approval if necessary.
Step 9: Deliver and Implement
The goal is to maintain momentum and keep commitments on track by engaging stakeholders during implementation, monitoring progress, and sharing success stories.
This step includes:
- Working with stakeholders within and outside the City’s jurisdiction to support implementation and visibility of commitments.
- Understanding progress on commitment implementation and updating milestones on the commitment page.
- Informing the wider community about experiences, lessons, and achievements of this process.
Step 10: Learn
This step involves designing the organisation’s “learning journey” with the Monitoring Body, gathering the necessary information and submitting the required assessments.
That includes:
- The learning objectives and accountability requirements are stated, how they will be achieved and who will participate.
- The way in which data will be collected, stored, analyzed and shared with relevant stakeholders is defined.
- The organization works with the Monitoring Body to ensure a timely and valuable assessment of implemented commitment.
The ultimate goal is to work with the monitoring body to extract lessons from the process of co-creating and implementing the action plan.
