The Congress, together with the Open Government Partnership (OGP), has successfully completed a comprehensive training of trainers (ToT) on open government for members of the Association of Ukrainian Cities (AUC), with the launch of a new manual “Co-creating Local Open Government Commitments”.

The manual is a practical resource that provides step-by-step guidance for trainers, with methodologies, examples and tools for strengthening transparency, integrity and citizen participation at local level. It has been prepared as a result of a series of workshops held from October 2024 to August 2025 to build capacities on open government practices for some 20 AUC representatives, enabling them to deliver training and guidance to local authorities across Ukraine, design participatory processes, address local challenges, and build trust in communities. This capacity-development process was grounded in the 12 Principles of Good Democratic Governance and built upon the Handbook on Open Local Government and Public Ethics and the bE-Open online tool.

The manual is already being used by AUC experts and trainers, who began supporting Ukrainian municipalities in promoting open decision making and citizen engagement. In the coming months, the AUC, the OGP and the Congress will continue co-operating to assist Ukrainian municipalities and connect them with global networks of reformers.

This initiative stems from the tripartite memorandum of understanding signed in 2022 between the OGP, the AUC, and the Congress. It is organised in the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine “Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction” 2023–2026 and as part of the project “Strengthening multilevel governance and local democracy to support Ukraine’s recovery”, implemented by the Centre of Expertise for Multilevel Governance at the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

Training of trainers manual “Co-creating Local Open Government Commitments” [English] [Ukrainian]