The 16th Conference of the International Observatory of Participatory Democracy (IOPD) will be held in the city of Matola, Mozambique on 4, 5 and 6 May 2016. It is being organised by Matola City Council, as President of the International Observatory of Participatory Democracy, in collaboration with Barcelona City Council (Catalonia), currently the IOPD's Technical Secretariat.

The theme of the IOPD's 16th Conference will be “Good Government and Inclusive Citizen Participation”. Its goal is to bring together the experiences and practices of local authorities, public-sector managers, organisations, entities, civil society, researchers and academics from all over the world in order to discuss and deliberate on cities as a space for essentially human democracy.

The conference will be organised round five main themes:

1: Democratising representative democracy: administration models and citizen participation experience in local and municipal government,

2: Local and municipal government in the digital era: opportunities and challenges for citizen participation via the internet,

3: Participatory budget and participatory planning: Participation or representation? Legitimacies and social inclusion in defining and safeguarding the future,

4: Evaluating forms of participation, from responses to popular demands and citizen satisfaction levels.

5: The role of civil society organisations, religious organisations, education and the mass media in citizen education for participation, and in controlling the democratisation of public authorities.