The international conference "Technology for Transparency and Citizen Participation" was held on Friday, September 27th at the Impact Hub in Zagreb. The conference was organized within the project "YOU4EU - Citizen Participation 2.0", which is implemented by Belgrade Open School in cooperation with partners from Montenegro (Institute Alternative), Croatia (Gong), Slovenia (PiNA) and Spain (Access Info Europe) with the support of European Union within the Europe for Citizens Program.
In the introductory speech, Jelena Berković (Gong) expressed her thankfulness to all the participants and satisfaction with great attendance at the event. "I am proud and positively surprised to see you in such a huge number. Today we will talk about how we can make democracy better and bring it closer to citizens." Ana Stevanović (BOS) then presented the YOU4EU project and the publication "50 Questions from YOU to the EU" which answers citizens' questions regarding the functioning of state institutions and the European Union.
Afterwards, the award ceremony for the winners of the best digital solutions, which encourage citizen engagement and enable better communication of citizens and decision-makers, was held. CIECODE from Spain won 2,000 Euros for the completion of their solution "Personal Political Analyst".. "Personal Political Analyst" is a platform that serves as a voice assistant and allows monitoring of election promises of political parties at the local, national and EU level.
Beside the awarded solution, top 5 ideas were also selected - Pin'em and Izbori_se (Croatia), Parlamento 2030 (Spain), Easy local budget (Serbia), Fix my city (Montenegro), which offer attractive tools for citizens so they can be better informed, as well as monitor and participate in political processes at all decision-making levels. These ideas help decision-makers to become more accessible and closer to citizens, which significantly improves democracy of the society.
The central part of the event was devoted to a panel discussion "Technology for Transparency and Citizen Participation", in which many digital experts discussed open data, the right to access information of public importance, and the use of technology in increasing civic participation. The keynote speaker at the panel discussion was Helen Darbishire (Access Info Europe), who has been actively advocating for decreasing of non-transparency in the work of state institutions and fulfilment of the right to access information of public importance. She emphasized the importance of the information revolution, but also the challenges it brings with it. Also, she commented on the results of the publication "50 Questions from YOU to the EU" and pointed out that in this region the citizens have many difficluties in obtaining more extensive information from decision-makers.
In addition to Helen Darbishire, the panel discussion included Bojan Perkov (SHARE Foundation), Mia Biberović (Netocracy), Nikola Ljubešić (Institute Jozef Stefan) and Belen Aguero (CIECODE) who highlighted the main challenges they face in their work. The panel discussion was followed by an expert forum where participants discussed policy recommendations aimed at increasing transparency, better communication with decision-makers and greater citizen participation in public space through use of digital technologies. Some of the suggestions include more precisely defined functioning of the workgroups for drafting regulations, as well as further improvement of the process of public hearings aimed at reducing the possibility of abuse by public authorities. Also, it was highlighted that public servants should be further educated so they could improve their work and respond more effectively to the needs of citizens. The participants agreed on the key role of civil society organizations in improving communication between citizens and government, as well as better understanding of the impact of modern technologies on democratic processes.
The next debate within the YOU4EU project takes place in Ljubljana on October 22nd, 2019 and will be dedicated to citizen participation in environmental issues.
