6 insights from the Progressive Governance Symposium 2019
Ten hours, 150 people, one big question: how can we create better global governments for next-generation progress?
The annual Progressive Government Symposium is the international summit for those seeking to develop new governance structures that can effectively tackle the challenges our world is facing.
We attended the symposium in Berlin last week, and there was a lot of food for thought on how we can use technology, communities and collaborations to build future-proof societies. Here are our 6 key takeaways from the day.
1. The co-creation of ideas is essential.
“We need to find common solutions in the face of common challenges: there’s tremendous value in the co-development of ideas,” said Will Marshall, Progressive Policy Institute. There are so many of us working in different areas of society, each striving to build a better future for ourselves, so rather than duplicating efforts, it’s better to learn, fail and grow together. The private, entrepreneurial and civil sectors all have learnings essential for governments; governments need to get better at listening to, and utilising, these learnings.
The Permanent Secretary for International Relations, Governing Mayor of Berlin — Senate Chancellery, Sawsan Chebli, built on these sentiments, calling for cross-party collaboration, emphasising that we’re all working for the same vision of a better society, so collaboration is key. She also noted that governments should get better at talking not only cross-party, but cross-country.
2. We need citizen participation.
Open societies are the answer to nationalism, MP Konstantin Kuhle explained, which, in a nutshell, means we need our governments to be more accountable and open to the participation of all people. Taking this citizen-centric approach within local communities is proven to not only generate more sustainable solutions to the area’s problems, but it also increases citizen wellbeing (McKinsey Smart City Report 2018).
3. Governance structures are outdated.
Matthew Taylor, Royal Society of Arts, stated that “representative government as we know it is broken in many ways, and will never regain its legitimacy: we need new ways of governance.” This is something we’ve known for a while, but it’s hard to know where to begin to overhauling a system that has been operational in the Western world since the time of the ancient Greeks.
Matthew called for us to be more reactionary to what’s happening in the world around us, and highlighted that governance needs to do 3 things:
— be emotionally progressive
— to embrace the use of impactful technology at all levels
— to educate and empower young people
Only then, Matthew tells us, will we see true democratic innovation.
4. Self-criticism is a strength.
Throughout the day, each and every speaker we listened to was self-reflective of their work, and the work of their institutions. It was something powerful to witness, as we’re not used to those in government being human. Being critical, and sharing failings and best practices with other practitioners, ensures truly positive developments in the future.
5. Start local, think global.
The panel titled “Bottom-up, not top-down: Democratic innovation and inclusive growth at the city level” made it clear that cities offer a much more fertile ground for agile forms of governance, economic innovation and social integration than at the national level. Kamzy Gunaratnam (Deputy Mayor of Oslo), Quentin Hart (Mayor of Waterloo, Iowa) and Spiros Pengas (Deputy Mayor of Thessaloniki), each reflected on the changes they’d made in their cities, from new political educational programmes for students to professional rehabilitation for manual labourers. It’s key to consider international problems, such as the future of work, while focusing on local solutions, which can be copy and pasted into other community contexts.
6. Representative governance needs to be diverse.
Dominic Schwickert, Das Progressive Zentrum, began the day with a question: How can we win back the hearts and minds of the people? And this thread ran throughout the day. People feel they have been left behind because people in government don’t look like them, don’t have the same history. Representative governments need to be representative of the people they serve, which means there’s a need for a greater diversity within the civil service. This will better ensure the issues people are facing on the ground become higher priority within government, and ensure people become more engaged and less frustrated.
It’s clear: government needs to play catch up in order to more effectively serve the next generation, but structural transformation is on the way. It was inspiring to see so many passionate people determined to build structures that serve the many, rather than the few. We’ll continue to learn from these minds, in order to ensure we serve and support our clients with their transformations to participatory governance structures.
Civocracy is a CivicTech startup focused on implementing digital citizen participation projects in local communities.
Authored by Emily McDonnell, Head of Communications and Partnerships.
