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Description
The project’s aim is to explain causes and analyse mechanisms separating self-government from the local community in order to answer the main question: how to activate and strengthen democratic culture and civic awareness, so that local communities can regain power in a sustainable way?The main outputs are:
• diagnosis of local democracy in Poland demonstrating the most important mechanisms blocking and/or enhancing civic participation in local decision-making;
• development of a model solutions for increased civic engagement and elaboration of policy guidelines and recommendations for policy makers at local government level
• dissemination and up-scaling of policy guidelines and policy proposals civil society participatory mechanisms and social capital building on local level.The main activities are:
• integration of existing diagnoses of decentralization and civic participation in the EU
• development of a genuine research methodology and strategy for building stakeholders’ engagement for increased civic participation and democratization of local elites
• diagnosis of democratic culture and civic awareness based on all documents available (reports, statements, audio recordings or protocols of council meetings, local press etc.).
• ethnographic research conducted by a team, deliberately assembled to observe, lead individual and group interviews as well as gather materials in selected local communities
• individual interviews with actors important from the socioeconomic point of view
• two surveys involving representative population samples from the selected regions.
Summary of project results
The local government reform carried out in Poland in the 1990s initiated democratic changes. However, even though residents then gained the right to decide about their communities, the development of local government is still based mainly on the implementation of infrastructure projects. Dynamic systemic changes are not accompanied by changes in values among citizens and politicians. For local government to exist, there must be an aware civic community that wants to participate in public life and is able to make the right decisions together.
Instead of becoming more involved in local matters, residents refrain from participating in the public sphere, which is the result of isolating local authorities from local communities.
As an organization that has been supporting the development of local communities and local governments for years, we have noted the urgent need to strengthen the culture of participatory democracy by strengthening the capabilities of local authorities to engage citizens in participatory processes. This problem cannot be effectively addressed without evidence-based knowledge of the mechanisms that foster or inhibit civic engagement at the local level.
The long-term goal of the project was to strengthen democratic culture and civic awareness. The solutions adopted in the project were intended to increase awareness of the importance of citizen participation processes for local development and to create better conditions for effective citizen participation at the local level.
We conducted extensive four-stage research, from the analysis of existing data to a large survey. We were looking for answers to the question: What mechanisms and processes determine the participation of the local (municipal) community in making decisions regarding the commune - its resources, local government, establishing formal and informal rules of cooperation in public matters, control of power and its accountability, or the distribution of local resources belonging to the local community? ?
The analysis of existing data, i.e. previously published research reports, and, above all, the analysis of scientific literature, allowed us to more efficiently select research methods and data sources for subsequent research.
We conducted regional research using a qualitative method in the Podkarpackie and Pomeranian voivodeships. They included in-depth interviews and ethnography. We also analyzed local media in selected sixteen locations.
Then, we carried out a survey using the CATI method on a sample of 4,000 respondents to verify the nationwide representativeness of the observed social processes, as well as to identify patterns of residents'' attitudes. The research is summarized in the publication "Civic capital of local communities".
Based on research results and our own experience, we have developed recommendations for local government authorities, non-governmental organizations, and representatives of the legislative and executive authorities in Poland. Recommendations in the form of postulates concern the directions of shaping cooperation between the local government and residents - "Strengthening the participation of residents in shaping local public policies." The next stage was a draft act in the context of increasing civic participation in the performance of public tasks. It assumes changes in eight legal acts, most of them in the acts on municipal, district and voivodeship self-government, public benefit activities and volunteering, and access to public information.
The prepared publications arouse great interest among recipients, both from representatives of local governments and formal groups of residents. We also note interest from Parliament. Consultations are underway on the Act amending certain acts in order to increase civic participation in the performance of public tasks, which will then be forwarded to the Government Plenipotentiary for Civil Society.
The publications sparked heated discussions between representatives of the local government and non-governmental circles, which we have already observed at previous seminars, workshops and conferences. This gives an opportunity for wider interest in the proposed solutions, deeper reflection and thus a greater chance for them to become generally applicable principles of organizing the life of local communities.
The adopted solutions are intended to increase awareness of the importance of citizen participation processes for local development and to create better conditions for effective citizen participation at the local level.
However, due to the fact that the final products of the project were created at the end of its implementation, the final benefits still have to wait.
The Foundation has an extensive network of local branches that expand its reach to local administration and non-governmental organizations throughout the country, ensuring the possibility of wide dissemination of the project results and the opportunity to change the reality of local self-government.