Citizen's Active Participation in Transposing the Local Public Policies in South Region of Romania (PACT-PPL)

Description

The reform in administration is a present-day topic in Romania but the public decision at its core don't have the citizens's approval or support. That is why, through this project we intend, with the help from our partners Euro Qvorum Institute, to determine, through studies, their degree of participation and to shape a system to engage them in the local decisional process. The citizens, local authorities and the NGO's from the 7 towns in the South region of Romania are directly involved in accomplishing project activities. To achieve these goals, 196 citizens from 7 towns will participate to the orientation workshops and tripartite dialogues. The Centre of Academic Excellence will organize most of the activities of the project. Our partner in this project, Euro Qvorum Institute, will be responsible for the communication and the promotion actions within the project, and also for the dissemination of the project results.

Summary of project results

The project’s main objectives and results were related to: the research on legal regulations, the available instruments and mechanisms for citizens and the guidance seminars on local public policies. Project also focused on a model of local tripartite dialogue linked to the administrative and social life of local communities, in order to encourage citizens to be active on local decisional processes by launching initiatives and organising local events. In this context, the Promoter designed the first web page that aims to ease public access to local administrative procedures and legal documents and to familiarize the citizens with the terminology specific to local public policies (also called local administrative culture) - http://cultura-administrativa.cexa.eu/. Simultaneously, in order to support the growth of local administrative culture and for the proper development of the seminars organised in the project, a Guide was edited, that briefly presents the regulations that underlie the development and implementation of the local public policies. The Citizens’ Guide was developed for the purpose of making technical information understandable to citizens. Thus, the guide contains a series of terms, principles, regulations, rules, mechanisms and instruments for consultations, debates, development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of local public policies. 7 guidance seminars on understanding local public policies process and 7 tripartite dialogue meetings were organised, with more than 280 participating citizens, 13 NGO representatives and 23 representatives of local authorities in the counties of Southern Muntenia Region. Their purpose was to familiarize participants with the concept of local public policies, with the process of proposal, adoption, implementation and evaluation of public policies, as well as with the available mechanisms and tools. By participatory democracy means, i.e. through the creation of an interactive and dynamic dialogue space, through ideas and best practices exchange, through debates on topics of interest for the citizens and also through networking, the coagulation of communities of citizens involved in the decision-making processes at local level was made possible.

Summary of bilateral results