More participatory democracy through new digital processes

CIVITEC aims to make democracy more participatory, inclusive, and responsive by enhancing citizen involvement through new digital tools and processes. To achieve this objective, 13 partners across Europe are working together. What are their expertise, good practices and objectives in CIVITEC?

Cyprus
Nicosia Development Agency (lead partner) foresees an open, democratic and inclusive digital society. Local authorities put efforts in contributing to this objective by applying relevant actions on local level. The Municipal Youth Council of Latsia has a diverse and multisectoral contribution to the municipalities every-day life. Young citizens have the opportunity to apply their creativity for the common good and to present their positions and opinions to society. Our partners aim to improve the current version of the digital strategy that addresses digitalization in a very general approach. 

Bulgaria
Business Agency Association and Varna Municipality explain that on national level Bulgaria is only preparing to fastly catch up the trends for citizens’ inclusion and they have organised several initiatives around the need for citizens’ involvement in the city development, mainly through the form of active social media groups. The city of Varna has active civil society platforms related to youth ambitions and the green future. Our partners aim at modeling measures for financing CiviTech tools and technologies that support enhancing the policy making accountability, capacity and competence.
 

Ireland
There are several mechanisms already established aiming to foster community participation into policy making, general and planning issues. Among them, 'Community Development Public Consultation', 'Planning Service Public Consultation', 'Donegal Public Participation Network', 'Donegal Youth Council' and 'Pre-planning spatial service'. Donegal County Council and the ERNACT network will be focused on exploring how CivicTech and the use of new disruptive technologies can support an increased participation of communities and, better decision-making taking advantage of the use of new sources of updated and accurate data. 

Slovenia

Development Agency Sinergija and Ministry for Public Administration work a lot on the preparation of strategic documents of municipalities where the involvement of the public is necessary and crucial. The principal objectives are improving the use and application of CivicTech technologies for the quality, appropriateness and accessibility of information provided to citizens and stakeholder groups and from the processes to county decision-makers; the analysis of data produced during the various participatory democratic processes.

Greece

Municipality of Preveza and Computer Technology Institute and Press Diophantus Creation have created a detailed plan for the digital transition and development of small scale pilots like the 'Digital Beach Summit' that provides a public platform for dialogue with focus on the transition to a new digital and green era. They plan to collect experiences in the field of citizens e-participation to design the needed services to be provided by a planned central single platform for management and data collection of digital transformation actions.

Estonia
Viimsi Municipality Government has been implementing and innovating different digital solutions in order to simplify process and improve efficiency of Municipality’s work. Among others, Municipality has developed the GIS platform, aimed at digitalizing various municipal services in the interactive map format. The overall goal is to increase of involvement of local residents in the development and modification of Municipality’s Development Strategy 2045. For this, Viimsi plans to test the inclusion of local residents in the process of abovementioned plans by using a ICT solution.

Spain
Jaen County Council promotes the active participation of users and entities that represent them. The Council has led several youth development projects. A priority objective is to promote a universal participation model that guarantees access for young people and all involved agents to collaboration and cooperation mechanisms in the design, execution, and evaluation of youth policies, both at the provincial and local levels. Our partners are interested in building cooperation bridges with related public entities in the field of innovative social and technological research, social rights, and inclusion, looking for a strong and ambitious partnership that can create medium and large-scale projects.

France
Nièvre Numérique and Nièvre County Council aim at raising awareness of new technologies. They will also take advantage of civic technology to improve regional civic engagement and public participation in decision-making processes and the development and delivery of new co-created strategies and policies. They will encourage citizens to actively participate in various forms of democratic engagement.