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Description
In recent years, the involvement of citizens in society has increased, but the level of influence of decisions at the local level, especially by young people, is still low. Thus, local public services provided to citizens are still deficient, as studies show, especially the figures in the European Commission''s country reports, with negative effects on the quality of life in urban areas. The project aims to directly contribute to improving the quality of urban life by involving citizens, especially young people, by encouraging urban authorities to provide quality public services.
More precisely, education, local public transportation, respectively waste management are targeted by monitoring activities of relevant indicators in 47 municipalities (40 county residences, Bucharest + 6 sectors), by selecting and training 80 citizens, followed of advocacy campaigns for each of the 3 public services from 8 municipalities selected for the intervention of the local involvement groups set up. The steps will primarily aim at complying with the rules in force for the three public services, namely the Education Law, local public transport services, the waste regulatory package, but also the secondary regulatory framework.
Tools will also be developed to monitor the quality of public services and citizen involvement through security activities and local advocacy campaigns, as well as a transfer of good community mobilization practices with the help of partner Vellenes Fellesorganisasjon. At the same time, a series of civic and environmental awareness sessions are planned with the support of Act For Tomorrow, a partner organization also involved in monitoring and conducting advocacy campaigns on waste management, thanks to the expertise of this association in the field.
Summary of project results
The premise of the project was the low level of influence of decisions at the local level, the local public services provided to citizens being still deficient. The project aimed to contribute directly to improving the quality of urban life by involving citizens, mainly young people, by determining urban authorities to provide quality public services.
In the first phase of the project, the information requested from all 47municipalities proposed in the funding application regarding the quality of three monitored public services (public transport, education and waste management) was processed and analyzed. A wide-ranging study has been publicly launched,
which consisted in a diagnosis of how the responsible authorities provide citizens in the county municipalities with these public services. A focus group was organized in which a methodology was established to select 8 intervention localities from 8 different development regions. A recruitment campaign for Local Involvement Group (LIG) members was also carried out, with two components: one dedicated to the recruitment of local LIG coordinators and one dedicated to the recruitment of volunteer LIG members. This was followed by a site-visit to Oslo which included numerous meetings with Norwegian public officials, experts and activists, site visits and then physical and online training sessions that ensured a good transfer of good practices to the members of the 8 LIGs. With the knowledge, tools and techniques of advocacy and civic mobilization developed in the project, the LIG members carried out 24 advocacy campaigns at local level as well as 3 advocacy campaigns at national level. During the final event, a new monitoring report of the interventions in the 8 selected municipalities was launched to measure the direct and indirect impact of the advocacy efforts of LIG members.
This project contributed to empowering citizens, supporting advocacy efforts, and encouraging collaboration with local authorities. It built trust between communities and leaders, fostering accountability and active public involvement.
Summary of bilateral results
The project partner is Vellenes Fellesorganisasjon. The cooperation started with the preparation of the National Diagnostic Report on the quality of municipal public services and continued with the preparation and implementation of the study visit. During the working visit of the SAR and AfT team to Oslo, the partner''s'' representatives were involved both in the training sessions for the members of the local involvement groups and in the preparation and launch of the monitoring report in the 8 intervention municipalities.