Two weeks ago, I was fortunate to attend the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Global Summit in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Euskadi, Spain as part of the UK delegation—a mix of government and civil society representatives working to promote transparent, participatory, inclusive and accountable governance.
The summit is a biannual gathering bringing together over 3,000 people from 74 countries and 150+ cities and regions committed to OGP principles. Greater Manchester Combined Authority is amongst them.
Beyond being part of the OGP community, I was particularly interested in how different countries are enabling citizens to participate in civic governance, especially around data and digital technologies like AI.
Day one focused on OGP Local initiatives, creating opportunities to learn and share. Speaking to colleagues from Quezon City, Philippines, I was blown away by their youth initiatives—creating forums where young people define city priorities and receive budget allocation for implementation.
There was considerable discussion around AI’s potential impacts and how these technologies could be harnessed for good rather than profit. However, I found the framing inadvertently strayed into techno-solutionism. The discussion centred on how we enable people to participate in AI design and implementation, whereas the question should be: should AI be used in the first place?
In contrast, there was an excellent discussion on the environmental and social impacts of data centres within communities. We’re generally aware of environmental impacts through power and water consumption, but less so about noise pollution and land use. Large data centres employ relatively few people whilst occupying land that could potentially bring greater value to host communities—something I’m sure Open Data Manchester CIC will explore further.
Vitoria-Gasteiz and Euskadi are beautiful, with excellent food (pintxos) and wine. And yes, you can reach it by train from Manchester in a day (albeit a long one).