*4.1. Sub-Question (1): How Do City-Level Community Indicator Initiatives Function in Different Latin American Countries?*

The Latin American community indicator initiatives studied hail from a geographically vast area, as they work in 49 cities located in 10 countries between Mexico and Argentina. See the Supplementary Files for details on names, city population, year of establishment, main activities, and website. Table 2, below, summarizes, at the country level, the number of initiatives that existed in 2014, with certain characteristics in terms of organizational set-up and actions, and that continue to exist in 2021. As evident from this table and the Supplementary File, Brazil (15) and Colombia (10) have had the largest number of initiatives. Some were started in small municipalities of just 20,000 inhabitants but the majority in large cities. The average population size is close to 2 million, and from among the 10 largest Latin American cities, all except for Caracas were at some moment represented in the *Latin American Network for Fair, Democratic and Sustainable Cities*. In terms of organizational set-up, a large majority of initiatives are distinct civil society organizations. Exceptions include those where the community indicator work is run as another NGO's project, or entirely by volunteers, or as a public–private partnership led by a local government. In fact, local governments are only included as stakeholders in 6% of all initiatives. Significantly more prevalent are media firms (stakeholders in 50% of all initiatives), academic institutions such as universities (63%) and business institutions (e.g., chamber of commerce), and private foundations (69%). Whereas initiatives called *Cómo Vamos* are usually governed by three or four-member institutions, others opted for more fluid internal governance; *Nossa Sao Paolo* auto-identifies as a network with hundreds of stakeholders. In 2014, the number of salaried staff varied from 0 (in fledgeling initiatives or those organized purposefully as a "citizen collective") to 13; the median was 3.


**Table 2.** Number of initiatives per country in terms of characteristics and staying rate.

In terms of activities assessed in the study period, about a third of initiatives dedicated explicit attention on their websites to their local government's policies, such as ordinances and compliance with election pledges. Most combined reporting about a set of sustainability-related indicators (obtained from official sources) with those of quality-of-life surveys implemented by the initiatives themselves. In Colombian cities, such subjective perception surveys are a trademark activity and implemented annually via professional pollsters contracted at a high cost. Other initiatives only have periodic surveys. One Ecuadorian, volunteer-run initiative used sociology students assigned by their university for polling. All initiatives also carry out a wide array of outreach activities not amenable to simple quantification. A case in point is capacity building; "the personnel of eight municipalities have been trained to fill out the files to collect the indicators. It's a permanent job", explained informant PE#3. Other examples include organizing public debates with mayoral candidates in the run-up to elections [34] and numerous thematic round tables with officials and experts about issues such as sustainable transport or child malnutrition. In terms of organizational continuity, the verification of internet sites showed that 55% of the 49 initiatives tracked since 2014 were assessed as being active in 2021.
