What is a Governance Toolkit?

A toolkit, broadly speaking, is an assembly of tools that are needed on different stages or occasions for a certain practice. A handyperson usually comes with a toolkit comprising wrenches, screwdrivers, and power tools to fix or maintain something. In software development, toolkits consist of various components that build up an integrated system. In governance, a toolkit combines methods and practices for facilitating and steering the interaction between the government, businesses and citizens towards shared outcomes. The structure of a toolkit as well as the tools included may vary according to the capacity and needs of each sector.

Before designing a toolkit on collaborative governance, it is helpful to provide a brief overview of some pre-existing toolkits. The Observatory of Public Sector Innovation of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has curated a large database of toolkits, playbooks and guides aimed at different topics, such as Public Policy, Social Innovation and Open Government.

Our focus here has been placed on Open Government, defined as “a culture of governance that promotes the principles of transparency, integrity, accountability and stakeholder participation in support of democracy and inclusive growth”. In the following sections we provide an overview of a representative number of Open Government and Public Innovation toolkits (see Appendix 1). The reviewed toolkits aim for participatory decision-making, improved data governance and citizens’ empowerment, elements that are considered key for the successful realization of a Circular Economy. Even though Collaborative Governance is a different approach, the analysis provides useful insights for the design and development of this toolkit.

The selection criteria for the toolkits were sought to include (a) different types of organizations (e.g. public institutions, NGOs, Universities, etc) involved in their development; (b) different focuses (e.g. participatory decision-making, data governance, awareness-raising, evaluation and monitoring, etc); and (c) a broad spectrum of implementation and application methodologies. This analysis unveils a deeper understanding of goals, methodology, and expected level of success of the respective toolkits. It should be highlighted that the data presented are derived from desk research, while empirical evidence concerning the actual implementation of the respective activities exceed the scope of this deliverable.