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Barcelona chosen to hold the IOPD presidency to organise the 18th Conference in 2018.

Ada Colau is the new IOPD president.   

Montreal, July 3 (DP.net).─ More than 400 people from 30 countries took part in the 17th IOPD Conference in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from 16 to 19 June. Over the course of these four days, 80 speakers spoke and debated in various plenary sessions, workshops and other events on the theme of “Participation without exclusion”. 

Montreal is putting together documents on the content of the conference but you can already see videos (at the foot of THIS PAGE) of some of the sessions, as well as videos containing interviews with some of the speakers. You can also see more photographs of the conference at THIS LINK. 

A consensual Final Declaration was adopted on the issue of "Participation without Exclusion", supporting "the commitments made by the international community through various international agendas, including the Sustainable Development Goals and the new program for cities and human establishments, to promote the implementation of institutional, political, legal and financial mechanisms to establish inclusive platforms allowing effective participation by everyone in decision-making".  

Furthermore, the Declaration emphasizes that the "Observatory and its members must address how to ensure that all strata of the population participate in participatory democracy activities" and makes five final approaches to encourage and dvelop the participation. Readers may read the full text of the Declaration HERE. 

Barcelona was elected to hold the IOPD presidency and will organise the 18th IOPD Conference in 2018. The theme of the conference will be “Direct democracy and citizen initiative”, and the dates being considered are October-November 2018. The Mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau is the new IOPD president, and she takes over from her Montreal counterpart Denis Coderre.

Fernando Pindado, the Commissioner for Participation and Active Democracy, who represented Barcelona at the General Assembly, invited those present to take part in the next conference and announced that spaces for dialogue and joint work would be opened up with members to work on a broad and diverse programme for 2018, as Montreal did during this period.

The General Assembly also agreed to continue with the working group on the future of the IOPD, which will have to put an organisational proposal before the members of the organisation at the General Assembly in 2018.

After the Annual IOPD Conference, Barcelona City Council held a seminar and three days of discussion on direct democracy between 26 and 28 June. These discussions, held within the framework of the new regulation, which envisages the holding of consultations (popular ballots), reflected on the different types of direct democracy, as well as the risks and opportunities it offers.