The Cities Coalition for Digital Rights, UN-Habitat, UCLG and Eurocities, in partnership with the Open Society Foundation, are launching an open call to find city governments and experts in Europe to pilot the Digital Rights Governance Framework.
The Cities Coalition for Digital Rights, launched by the Cities of Amsterdam, Barcelona and New York in November 2018 and now with a membership of over 50 cities worldwide, is a network of cities helping each other in the greenfield of digital rights based policy-making. Committed to promoting and defending digital rights in urban context, the Coalition has launched several initiatives to resolve common digital challenges. After having its first political meeting last October in Amsterdam, the Coalition launched the report “Citizen Voices for Digital Rights”, and initiated together with CIDOB the Global Observatory on Urban AI.
Selected cities will receive support to design and implement the Digital Rights Governance Framework at the local level, and will be provided with technical advice, ad hoc support and advisory input. The goal of the project is to tackle local digital rights challenges around thematic areas (digital inclusion, data sovereignty , transparency and accountability, public participation and community engagement, privacy, digital public goods and open digital infrastructures and procurement) by developing a Digital Rights Governance Framework and a capacity-building programme in these topics.
Using challenge-driven innovation, the pilot process will include assessments, workshops and a capacity-building approach that will be carried out in collaboration with the city’s local staff.
The Digital Rights Governance Framework project kicked-off in December 2021 and will run until until March 2023.
The open call includes two modalities:
One for city governments in Europe. Local authorities and policymakers are welcome to apply by sharing local challenges in the different digital rights areas.
The pilot requires engagement and commitment from the cities, who should be able to work a few hours per month with the project team. The contribution from the cities in terms of time and resources depends on the phase of the project, starting with the Discover and Design phase to understand the city challenge better, and the actual Pilot phase when the cities receive support to implement their digital rights strategies, in a practical way.
One for professionals with background in the thematic areas related to digital rights.
The framework initiative invites qualified individuals with experience and expertise in the digital rights thematic areas.
The contribution and collaboration with experts is voluntary-based and will be defined based on the availability, area of knowledge and the selection of cities. Further information will be provided during the Design phase of the project, taking place in March 2022.
The open calls for city governments and experts are open from Tuesday 1 February until Sunday 27 February 2022.