About the retreat
From tackling climate change to navigating digital transitions, civil servants across Europe are facing common challenges that call for democratic, transparent and accountable solutions. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these problems, calling into question citizens' trust in their governments’ and institutions’ capabilities to reach common and sustainable solutions.
The Open Governance Network for Europe will convene the first annual Democracy and Governance Practice Retreat for European civil servants, for sharing, learning, and developing new skills in democratic participation, transparency, and accountability toward stronger policymaking and public services fit for times of crisis, recovery, and beyond.
Who is it for?
This inaugural retreat aims to bring public servants and professionals working in civil society from across the EU and for EU member states. The goal is to engage with key democracy and governance thinkers and actors from across European civil society and international organisations. Participants can be working at any level of the public service or with an interest in governance – recent graduates are also encouraged to register. Some sessions are limited to a smaller number of participants, for which registration is on a first-come, first-served basis.
What is it?
Retreat sessions range from large, high-level conversations to small, interactive workshops, held online each day over the course of one week. Sessions will be led by key experts, officials, practitioners, and facilitators. Sessions will focus on translating democratic and open governance principles into practice, challenging those practices, and identifying priorities for further research and development, across relevant, priority policy and service areas such as pandemic recovery, human rights, civic participation, rule of law, transparency and accountability, technology, and climate.
The retreat sessions will draw from:
- European Partnership for Democracy’s extensive network of democracy practitioners
- European Commission's award-winning Together | Ensemble conversation series
- Demsoc’s wealth of participatory methods and approaches
- Hertie School’s seminars and skills trainings on public management, leadership, and governance
- LabX's innovative approaches to public service design
- Netherlands Helsinki Committee’s trainings on rule of law
- OCP's tools and track record in making public contracts open, fair, and efficient
- OGP’s recent guide for an open response, recovery, and renewal, including recommendations, resources, and a review of global experiences
- OECD’s open government strategies and initiatives
- UN Guidelines on Participation, tools to ensure effective participatory processes.
What can participants expect?
Through the retreat, participants will gain a better understanding of not only what approaches to policy making and public services are found to help improve citizen trust in governments during crisis, but also how to build those approaches into everyday practice. After, the organisers will produce a brief of the key findings, lessons learned and best practices, which will lay the ground for future retreats and other learning and innovation opportunities.
