Description
The project addresses the need for e-democracy and direct citizen participation in decision-making via modern information and communication technology (ICT). The project aims at enhancing e-democracy in Bulgaria based on best experience from Iceland and raise citizens’ and decision-makers’ awareness about e-voting, e-referenda, e-consulting and e-petitioning. First, the current status of e-democracy will be assessed in a report. Second, a 3-day study visit to Iceland will be held to collect data for the Green Paper. Third, a Green Paper on e-democracy will be drafted and opinion polls will be held in 4 regions both online and at 4 round tables. Next, an international conference on e-democracy will be held in Bourgas. Finally, a citizen/expert e-democracy advocacy network will be set up. The project will benefit the target groups of NGOs, ICT experts, informal citizen groups, decision-makers and the media. The 2 partners will support the project with their expertise.
Summary of project results
The project was necessary to address the need of development of е-democracy, the inclusion of the civil society via the new technology available, an area in which Bulgaria has been lagging behind (to a greater extent compared to the e-government). The project aimed at promoting good practices and models of e-democracy, creating a vision for the development of e-democracy in Bulgaria and specific decisions as the first steps along that line of development. The project addressed the issue of e-democracy, provided guidance for its development in Bulgaria, set up a network and partnerships; improved the Bulgarian-Icelandic relations at government and civil experts’ level. Given the referendum scheduled on e-voting, the project was topical and useful as it shed an additional light for the public on these issues. A model of a National E-Civil Initiative was developed and proposed to the Bulgaria policy-makers. The main project outputs are the Green Paper for the development of E-Democracy in Bulgaria, the collection E-Democracy (a collection of articles from Bulgarian and foreign authors) and the Concept and a bill for the introduction of the National E-Civil Initiative. The project team continues to have meetings with MPs to work on the adoption of the draft bill (Law amending the Act for the Direct Participation of Citizens in the Central and Local Governance) for the introduction of the National E-Civil Initiative. For more information:
www.initiative.bg
Summary of bilateral results
The bilateral project implementation lead to improved knowledge of the most recent democratic development of Iceland – an information need of the Bulgarian society since 2013, on the other side - improved awareness of Bulgaria of an important opinion-leader in Iceland – the International Modern Media Institute, chaired by the leader of the Pirate Party Ms. Birgitta Jonsdottir. The involvement of a leading IT expert from Iceland helped for the better assessment of the situation with e-governance in Bulgaria and provided better visibility of the project. The visibility was really high – the lead Icelandic IT expert Smary McCarthy (a well known lecturer worldwide) was invited as a guest to Slavi Show (aired on one of the national TV channels with at least one million viewers). The group of speakers who came from Iceland for the conference on e-democracy was unprecedented and was welcome by the university students and the general public in Bourgas and elsewhere.