Four years ago, CoST opened membership to allow cities and regions to become CoST members. This advancement recognised the important role that local governments have in infrastructure, and the need to drive transparency and anti-corruption at that level.

In that time, cities of Sekondi-Takoradi in Ghana and Bogota in Colombia, the region of Jalisco in Mexico and the Regency of West Lombok in Indonesia have joined CoST and made vital strides in driving change. Using CoST’s core features of multi-stakeholder working, disclosure, assurance and social accountability to increase transparency and improve access to essential services, including for people with disabilities.

In this case study, we focus on the work of sub-national members in enhancing institutional multi-stakeholder forums, delivering open government commitments, enabling transparency in megaprojects and programmes and using data to improve projects.

Highlights include:

• Jalisco State’s open data portal having over 6000 visits in less than two years
• The City of Bogota developing a portal which holds data on projects with a total value of over $7 billion
• Sekondi Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly’s work leading to disability friendly services, including disability ramps and elevated staircases
• The Regency of West Lombok’s programme supporting with the maintenance of 6,300km of road