Local government is closest to the citizens, provides majority of public services and affects everyday lives. It also has a key role in bringing about e-government. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals depends on effective, accountable and inclusive public intuitions on all levels and the recent UN E-government Survey showed that e-government contributes to the principles and the goals of SDGs. Therefore, it is important not to neglect local government level and e-government when considering the path towards achieving the SDGs in information and knowledge societies.

 This session brings together representatives from NGO, private sector and government backgrounds with experience in e-government and open data tools for local government to focus on two themes:

-          international multistakeholder cooperation for experience sharing and capacity building for e-government and

-          tools for turning the increasingly available public open data into knowledge and action at the local level.

Estonia has improved its e-government for over two decades on both local and central level. This has resulted in an extensive body of experience that is valuable for countries just starting with e-government as well as for those wishing to improve the existing systems to provide their citizens better services. The key player in sharing Estonia’s experience is the independent non-profit foundation e-Governance Academy (www.ega.ee) which has helped in cooperation projects more than 50 countries in Africa, Asia, Latina-America, Caribbean and Europe over the last 15 years to set up and improve e-government systems. e-Governance Academy hosts the yearly e-governance conference in Tallinn that in 2017 is titled “Transfer of e-governance knowledge” (http://2017.tallinnconference.ee). This experience will be discussed in the context of e-government and SDG 16 (inclusive societies and effective, accountable and inclusive institutions) drawing on WSIS Action Lines C1 (role of government), C4 (capacity building), C7 (e-government) and C11 (cooperation).

Public open data is increasingly becoming available from governments around the world. The number of governments providing public data has nearly doubled in recent years and currently 128 out of 193 UN Member States provide some open data according to the 2016 UN E-government Survey. However, to enable better-informed decisions on all levels of government and help the communities in their goals the data and information first need to be translated into knowledge. Tools are needed for working with open data that by itself is not easy to use. Private sector has an important role in contributing to the creation of these tools in multistakeholder cooperation. Looking at recent experience of Ovela (www.ovela.us), the author of Find Your Town (www.findyour.town), this session will discuss the ways for communities to make the open public data work for their benefit, including for rural economic development and issues related to the creation and replication of the necessary tools. In addition to SDG 16, goals 17 and 11 are relevant for this discussion as well as WSIS Action Lines C1, C4, C7 and C11.