"Today, the public dialogue in Poland is increasingly limited to a narrow segment of society" said Anna Giza-Poleszczuk at the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology in Warsaw. "Local communities and citizens groups have difficulties participating in agenda setting and provoking debate." With support from the EEA Grants, Giza-Poleszczuk and her research team are now investigating how to stimulate and encourage more transparency and debate in Poland.
"We believe the key barrier to the development of civil society is the fact that people lack the means, skills and reliable information to raise demands," continued Giza-Poleszczuk. According to the research team at the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology, there are four main obstacles that hinder the "bottom up" flow of ideas and demands; incomprehensible official information; conflicting data creating distrust in official statistics; lack of access to true evaluations of the service provided by public institutions; and the lack of a real platform for public debate. "If social policy is not grounded in people's real needs, it cannot be effective," continued Giza-Poleszczuk.
An evaluation of Polish public services will now be carried out, alongside an assessment of the main barriers to civic participation. The research team is also launching a web portal making official facts and indicators easily accessible and comprehensible to the general public. The project is carried out in close collaboration with the organisation Klon/Jawor Associsation, one of most influential NGOs in Poland, and both local and national authorities will be involved in the project.
Through informing and engaging local citizens, while making institutions of governance more inclusive, transparent, and responsive, the project aims to secure long-term, sustainable change. "This has the potential to form the basis for a reliable, modern way of monitoring the quality of governance in Poland, and for a new, rational way of debating social and policy issues," concluded Giza-Poleszczuk.