IGF 2024 Open Forum #70 Improving local online service delivery in a global world

Some of the biggest challenges facing the world include the need to improve environmental and socio-economic sustainability and equity globally, nationally, and locally. Harnessing the transformative potential of digital technologies and the Internet is a key enabler of our drive for sustainable development and in addressing pressing environmental and socio-economic challenges in our cities, towns, and communities. Our cities, towns and communities are essentially a collection of human, social, economic, and cultural networks and are settings in which a sense of belonging and togetherness can be fostered and in which the public processes that support social cohesiveness and development can be optimized and made more efficient and effective. Towards this end, increased attention should be given to assessing the online presence of local government in cities. A logical starting point is assessing the role of cities as service providers and examining city portals as the key mechanism for e-government in such contexts. The Local Online Service Index (LOSI), a multi-criteria index that captures e-government development at the local level, by assessing information and services provided by local governments through official websites, has been designed by UNU-EGOV and UNDESA. The burgeoning interest in e-government development, combined with the growing number of requests for inclusion and representation in the local e-government survey, led the study organizers to establish the LOSI Network. The Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government (DPIDG) of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) and the United Nations University Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV), have established LOSI Network. LOSI Network includes national representative entities that are willing to apply LOSI instrument in their national context, assessing municipalities’ portals. This initiative is resulting in the assessment of a much larger number of local government portals, thus bringing:

• Broader coverage and representation of the status/maturity of local e-government.
• A more comprehensive and complete portrait of local e-government worldwide, with the larger survey sample allowing more accurate insights, more consistent analysis, and the opportunity to better identify the challenges, difficulties and opportunities cities have in common (and where there is divergence).
• The opportunity to engage in broader evidence-based analysis of the online presence of local governments worldwide, with increased capacity for productive comparisons and the ability to identify areas in need of improvement.
• The establishment of a network of experts and practitioners that can share good practices and lessons learned.

This open forum will present and discuss the learning experiences of the LOSI application in countries as diverse as (alphabetically) Brazil, Greece, India, Jordan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, Republic of Korea. In doing so, the open forum will invite interested parties and potential partners to join the LOSI Network, explore the LOSI methodology, and make constructive suggestions for future adjustments in the methodology focus and criteria. The output of the open forum will be a summary report.

For information on the LOSI Network: https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/en-us/About/E-Government-at-…

1) How will you facilitate interaction between onsite and online speakers and attendees? Onsite and online moderator will communicate directly throughout the session to ensure that comments and questions online is brought up in the discussions. Depending on the length of the session approved (90 or 60min) and the volume of online contributions, the online moderator may summarise the questions or contributions on behalf of online participants. The session report will reflect both onsite and online contributions.

2) How will you design the session to ensure the best possible experience for online and onsite participants? All slides will be mirrored both onsite and online. Where possible speakers, panelists and contributing participants will be streamed. Virtual surveys with results being discussed will be applied.

3) Please note any complementary online tools/platforms you plan to use to increase participation and interaction during the session. The organising partners, UNDESA and UNU-EGOV, will advertise the open forum (i.e. date, time, links) within their respective networks and across their social media profiles (e.g. LinkedIN, X, Facebook) to increase the reach of IGF and the session. Similarly, the output and outcomes of the open forum will be discriminated.