ABC Guide on Citizen Engagement

The aim of the ABC Guidelines is to highlight the main stages of the decision making preparation processes based on the Law on Transparency in Decision Making (2008), and since there is no one-size-fits-all model for citizen engagement, these Guidelines also serve as a concise and practical reference tool for a successful implementation of citizen engagement by public authorities.

Ghidul de la A la Z privind implicarea cetățenilor în procesele decizionale

Scopul Ghidului de la A-Z constă în evidențierea și enumerarea etapelor cheie de pregătire a procesului decizional în baza Legii privind transparenţa în procesul decizional (2008), şi din motiv că nu există un singur model care să se potrivească cel mai bine atunci cînd este abordat subiectul implicarea cetățenilor, acest Ghid, de asemenea, serveşte drept instrument concis şi practic de referinţă pentru implementarea cu succes a implicării cetățenilor de către autorităţile publice.

Handbook on Transparency and Citizen Participation

The Handbook on Transparency and Citizen Participation in the Republic of Moldova was developed by the Council of Europe within the regional project ‘Strengthening institutional frameworks for local governance’ in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, and Belarus. 

This project is implemented as part of the Partnership for Good Governance 2015-2017 between the Council of Europe and the European Union. Four handbooks were produced with country-specifi c information for Armenia, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. They aim to preserve and share the lessons learnt and best practices identifi ed during the implementation of the above mentioned project, which is supported by the national associations of local authorities. 

The research work and writing of this Handbook was carried out by Mr Tim Hughes, Director of The Involve Foundation, and Ms Veronica Cretu, national consultant for the Republic of Moldova. The overall co-ordination was ensured by the Department of Co-operation and External Relations of the Secretariat of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe. 

“Co-creating Public Policies or Ways to Bring Citizens into the Process” by Veronica Cretu (ePSI, 2016)

Citizens around the world continue witnessing unprecedented levels of growing inequality, corruption or absence of citizen voice in decision making processes, and these are just very few examples of problems at the core of the world’s development challenges and of the global agenda. One of the biggest challenges is closing the so-called feedback loop – or accountability gap – between what citizens need or demand for and what the governments actually do to respond to that demand. On one hand, citizens need to have more information and incentives to articulate their voice; while governments need to have the ability to listen, and act upon the feedback they receive from citizens on services they benefit from.

Significant efforts have been made to make public services user-friendly and reduce the administrative burden during the past years in several countries around the globe, however, studies show that service design often does not meet the expectations of citizens who require more usability and transparency. The deep understanding and knowledge of users, the re-design of services with their approach and preferred delivery channel in mind are important elements for governments to prove their ability to fulfil the needs of citizens. The ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach no longer works in all spheres of the public sector regardless of whether we deal with developed or developing countries; historical, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds play an important role in the expectations of interactions with public administrations. 

Engaging with stakeholders in the co-design of services or co-production of public policies raises the expectations related to higher quality of those services and greater value of the policies made. It is therefore important to start implementing specific collaborative service creation and policy-making by departing from the roles citizens play or might play in these processes as well as from ways public administrations gather the necessary customer insight, re-define their operational processes and identify appropriate sustainability models.

“Government 5D Transparency”, by Veronica Cretu,  ePSI 2015

Nowadays, many national governments, municipalities, cities have committed to increased transparency. And if one looks, just as an example, at the Open Government Partnership (OGP) platform[1] – even if a young initiative indeed, it managed to bring under the core values of transparency and openness 65 governments from all around the globe in just 3 years. All these governments recognised that a transparent government is an essential element of a free and democratic society.

One would argue that the concepts of transparency and open government have been around in different forms for many years. However, the biggest difference today lies in the technology which could provide, where access is available, citizens with a “truly open and accessible government”.  While transparency stands for openness and accountability, it is considered to be the key element that can help governments build trust in their citizens, a very important and yet necessary element for the well-functioning of democracies. Interestingly enough, transparency seems to mean different things to different people, in different parts around the globe. For some, transparency associates with access to information or freedom of information, for others it has to do with fighting corruption, social accountability and/or opening up government data. And by the way, when it comes to data, is putting government data online enough for transparency in government?! 

This paper explores on the different types of transparency and explains the interconnections between one another. Data transparency, process transparency, strategic transparency, transformational transparency, and radical transparency – what do all these types of transparency stand for, and how can governments make best use of these approaches  and what is the value added for governments to look at 5D transparency - are some aspects which the paper brings some reflections on.

[1] http://www.opengovpartnership.org/

Critical Thinking competency for an Open Government,  ePSI, 2014 (Veronica Cretu)

Critical thinking is one of the key competences of the today’s leaders, managers, public servants, policy makers, others.

During the past 20-30 years, hundreds of studies and projects have been conducted in order to reform the educational processes and to integrate the development of critical thinking in the educational system. The reason it is so important is because critical thinking competency is directly connected with independent decision making process, which allows for evidence based, out-of-box solutions and approaches. People who are able to think critically, are able to generate un-standard solutions, be free of stereotypes, embed innovation as part of the work they do. The complex world we are living in, the rapidly changing environment, the unprecedented flow of information and data – all require new sets of competencies in the government, and critical thinking is on the top of the list.  Today, public servants have to be more thorough, more adaptive, more flexible, be able to assess multiple scenarios for the same problems/issues and be able to generate solutions which might have not been implemented before. Thus, critical thinking is essential given that it helps “overcome and become aware of biases, false assumptions, myths, and faulty paradigms that can hamper effective decision making” (Bazerman 2005).

This paper looks into six specific cognitive processes (departing from Bloom’s Taxonomy) that altogether form the critical thinking competency, and provide clear descriptions of the type of attitude, skills and knowledge needed in order to develop each one of them. The paper addresses public servants as “learners” of critical thinking and provides practical guidance accordingly. 

How to build Local Open Government, 2014 ePSI (Veronica Cretu)

From town/city halls, national governments to central government public agencies, governments are working on innovative solutions to the most stringent and pressing problems their citizens face.  In doing so, governments are generating great things and creating institutions that focus on the future. Unfortunately, too often public servants focus on the performance of the current system, and reject experimentation and innovation. Resistance to change and getting out of comfort zone is still a ‘painful’ exercise across both developed and developing countries. However, it is today more than ever, that public sector requires reforms which are co-created and co-designed together with citizens who are going to be affected by those reforms. This opens up an entire new paradigm shift in the way central and local governments interact and engage with their citizens on the problems/issues/challenges.

Opening up governments, particularly at city level or local level is seen as a promising practice – given that the more local you go the easier is to implement/pilot/test reforms, is easier to engage with citizens, easier to partner with key stakeholders and get problems being ‘owned’ by the community.