Governance Vocabularies Initiative

About GVI

GVI emerged from a conference organized by Innovation for Policy Foundation, in partnership with the UM6P School of Collective Intelligence, and Participedia, with funding from the European Commission Horizon 2020. The “Governance Vocabularies Conference” gathered a diverse group of activists, academics, researchers, and governance practitioners at the UM6P Rabat Campus, in Rabat, Morocco with a mission to explore new maps, compases and destinations of governance. This diverse group developed the Rabat Declaration, a call to action for shared understanding that transcends traditional boundaries and builds essential connections across communities and diverse knowledge traditions.

This manifesto was born from the voices of the Global Majority, echoing a call to diversify and forge governance models that dance with the richness of our societies and languages. It’s a fusion, laced with words from the manifesto that tease – these words may look familiar, but they hold the key to uncharted universes waiting to be explored. 

Today, we’re not just seeking your input—we’re inviting you to bring your passion to amplify this declaration and elevate the goals of our transformative crew. It’s your moment to contribute, speak out, and let the echoes of change resonate globally! 

GVI Partners

Innovation for Policy Foundation (i4Policy) is a pan-African charitable foundation that brings communities and governments together to co-create their future. i4Policy has hosted and supported hundreds of hours of dialogue, more than a dozen community-driven law-making processes, introduced new consultation tools and pathways for inclusive and participatory decision thinking processes from local to global levels, and has trained hundreds of community leaders, citizens and government officials across more than 80 countries. i4Policy coordinated the world's first global citizens' assembly, the Global Assembly on the climate and ecological crisis in 2021; launched a continental crowdsourcing campaign at the start of the COVID pandemic with UNESCO and artists like Bobi Wine that reached more than 250m people on social media; and, is currently building a digital engagement platform for the African Union.

Participedia is a global network and crowdsourcing platform for researchers, educators, practitioners, policymakers, activists, and anyone interested in public participation and democratic innovations. The platform has been crowdsourcing a knowledge repository of democratic innovations since 2009, and currently hosts more than 2,400 cases, more than 375 methods, and counts more than 892 organizations in 158 countries.

The School of Collective Intelligence (SCI) is part of UM6P’s Business and Management Pole and is committed to addressing the most complex challenges facing society. Founded in June 2019, SCI created the world’s first accredited Masters in Collective Intelligence, launched three research laboratories, and accompanied partners such as the Obama Foundation and Facebook as well as leading companies in Morocco. At its campus in Rabat, SCI offers research, teaching and training programs that will help advance the emerging field of collective intelligence. Research collaborations include scholars from leading institutions such as MIT, NYU, and ENS-Paris.