Description
The ‘Active Civic Dialogue in the Łódź Voivodeship’ project seeks to strengthen consultative bodies in 12 municipalities in the Łódź Voivodeship. Four new bodies or community councils will be established (e.g. Public Benefit Council, seniors’ councils, disability councils, thematic teams). We will also strengthen existing consultative bodies by setting up a Regional Civic Dialogue Forum and developing 6 development plans for existing dialogue bodies. The project is a response to the poor quality of interaction between non-governmental organizations and local government. We will involve NGO leaders and local governments at the local, county and provincial levels.
Summary of project results
"In Łódzkie voivodeship, low quality of cooperation between organisations and local government is a problem, coming from weakness and scarcity of civic dialogue bodies, such as public benefit councils or consultation teams. The situation results from the fact that possible candidates are not prepared to play the role of sector representatives, the rules for functioning of dialogue bodies are not popularised and they do not cooperate between them at all. As a result, the role of the sector in the process of developing, implementing and monitoring public policies is hampered. The aim of the project was to strengthen the existing and creating new dialogue bodies in municipalities in Łódź voivodeship on the levels of municipalities, districts and voivodeship. The project resulted in creating 7 new dialogue bodies, strengthening 6 existing ones, and preparing to create next 15 ones (7 of them started to operate during the time when the project was implemented) in 14 municipalities. Three dialogue bodies started to cooperate between them. In municipalities, the quality of cooperation between organisations and local government improved. The process of creating new dialogue bodies initiated in 7 municipalities, 2 districts and 4 towns, and on the level of Łódź voivodeship included in every locality: diagnosis of situation, developing of a plan and rules for activities, filing a proposal of creating a dialogue body (council, thematic team, agreement between organisations) to the authorities. In order to strengthen and better prepare the dialogue bodies, we organised 83 workshops, a study visit in Warsaw, 2 Forums of Civil Dialogue, in order to exchange experiences and spread knowledge on activities of dialogue bodies. 450 representatives of organisations on municipal, district and voivodeship level participated in the project."
Summary of bilateral results