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Description
The town of Otrokovice as well as other partner municipalities creates concept documents and commission studies to find the best solutions that contribute to the improvement of life in cities. However, it is not possible to involve the public in order to participate more in the search for solutions and the implementation of activities that have an impact on city life.
The aim of the project is to introduce public involvement processes in the preparation and implementation of development plans and the creation of strategic documents at the local level in the participating partner cities, including the implementation of public involvement activities. The key activities of the project focus on:
1) Gaining experience from a foreign partner who has experience in involving the public (through a study trip of Czech partners to the Norwegian city of Fredrikstad, through consultations with foreign experts-representatives of the Norwegian partner, and the involvement of partner partners in educational activities).
2) Implementation of educational activities and sharing of experience focused on elected representatives and employees of the applicant and Czech partners.
3) Implementation of communication processes with the public and public involvement, which will be implemented by the applicant and all Czech partners.
4) The obligatory activity is publicity, within which we will create press releases for the public, create a collection of good practices for the professional public and organize a conference.
5) Project management by experienced members of the implementation team.
Summary of project results
Involvement of the public is relatively little implemented within the scope of public administration activities. Deepening knowledge and getting to know examples of good practice helped to incorporate public involvement into decision-making processes about public affairs - newly, or even more so - both within the Project Promoter (the City of Otrokovice) and in the partner municipalities. The big challenge was the coordination of 12 partner entities, which the Project Promoter managed thanks to an intensive cooperation with all the participants.
Public engagement is a process that needs to be well planned and managed. There are procedures, techniques and technologies that help with good management of the public involvement process, but the initiative shall come from the leadership of the municipality and the process must be planned, managed and transparent. In a good public participation process the public has the opportunity to make a real impact and add to or change the issue under discussion. Participation is ideal if it allows citizens to be involved at all stages of the project so that the outcome to see the outcome as their own.
The benefit is an increase in the participatory competences of municipal representatives thanks to education, implementation of participatory activities and cooperation with the Norwegian partner.
Thanks to the project, public involvement became part of the instruction of the Project Management process of the City of Otrokovice. The project meant the adoption of participatory methods on various topics, which contributes to improving the quality of the participation process in municipalities.
The Project Promoter realized the following activities:
Gaining experience from a foreign partner (study trip of 24 representatives of partner municipalitiesto Fredrikstad, involvement of Norwegian experts in consultations, workshops, conference).
Education (6 days of workshops for partner municipalities).
Public involvement activities in Otrokovice (questionnaire survey, meetings with 5 specific target groups, 2 public meetings).
Public involvement activities in partner municipalities (questionnaire survey and public meeting with citizens in each partner municipality and in each of the 14 municipalities of the microregion).
Publicity of the project (2-3 press releases for each municipality, conference).
Project management (implementation of activities).
Activities led to the fulfilment of the goal of the project- improve the ability of public administration to respond to the needs of residents using participation and to ensure the development of participation competences of public administration employees and elected representatives.
Municipalities involving citizens: 26 (implementer, 11 municipalities from the CZ, 1 microregion = another 14 municipalities) (100% fulfillment)
No. of citizens involved in particip.: 4796 (plan:2873 people), fulfillment 167%
No. of participatory activities (public and specific target group meetings, question surveys): 66 (plan: 57)
No. of municipalities trained: 12 (100%)
Exceeding the planned values proves that citizens and municipalities want to cooperate on the development of the municipality
Summary of bilateral results
The partnership allowed the participating municipalities to get feedback on the participation process in their municipality and thanks to that to assess whether they were moving in the right direction. Sharing examples of good practice contributed to improving the quality of the participation process to make it as beneficial as possible for all actors involved - citizens and municipal representatives.A great bonus of the partnership was the synergy effect created by the cooperation of more than dozens of partner municipalities. The partnership allowed for a broadening of horizons and brought the opportunity to look at issues from different perspectives and to see participation in detail in all its phases, contexts and benefits.The cooperation with the Norwegian partner lead to the mutual exchange of experience in the field of participation with citizens. This sharing of practices and seeking answers to questions on how to make the participation process more attractive and beneficial for citizens, let all the participating municipalities to gain a number of tips and examples on how to improve the quality of participation, to embed it in the system of local government and to make it known to the public as a tool that is beneficial for all - municipalities and citizens.