Efficient Public Participation in the Local Decision Making Process

Goal
The goal of the project was that the efficient public consultation's principles and mechanisms in the decision making process are known by organisations and local administration and adopted in 25 communities in Romania. The 25 beneficiaries came from Sibiu, Timisoara, Slobozia¸ Brusturoasa, Bucuresti, Botosani, Satu Mare, Panaghia, Tg Neamt, Zalau, Valea Mare Podgoria, Nehoiu, Balilesti, Craiova, Bacau, Alba, Focsani, Merisani, Pitesti, Slatina, Craiova, Horezu, Medias, Bacau, Gheorgheni.
  

Results

• 25 organisations gained knowledge and abilities to assess public participation processes in their communities and received the necessary tools to perform this assessment;
• the 25 organisations gained knowledge and abilities necessary to identify and analyze local problems in their communities;
• the 25 organisations enhanced their image as a credible local actor in the community through the meetings with local authorities and other local players organised within the project;
• the majority of NGOs organized interviews with citizens and local public authorities, assessed the methods and tools used for public participation at local level, organized public debates and/or realized research in the community in order to find out the community's problems and prioritize them;
• the majority of the organisations is now able to become partners of local authorities in their joint efforts to improve the local level of public participation;
• the local public administration in 11 communities realized their first own evaluation of the public participation mechanisms used, highlighting both the positive and the negative aspects, and together with a local organization decided on the improvements to be made. In 9 other communities the assessment was done entirely by the local NGOs. The NGOs and public administrations agreed on the public participation practices and tools needing improvement, among which: newsletters, organization of regular public debates, drawing up a schedule for regular public hearings, citizens' information on the local council's activity, citizens' consultation on local problems (stray dogs, sanitation, waste management, school abandonment among Roma children, etc.), new locations for the city hall's poster boards and suggestions boxes.
• representatives of 45 NGOs and local administrations have knowledge of participatory democracy principles and innovative methods for involving the citizen in the decision making process;
• 500 copies of the „Efficient Public Participation" handbook were edited and distributed to organizations and institutions of the local administration. The handbook offers information on the principles, rules and methods necessary to achieve an efficient public participation process and it introduces actual case studies from CeRe and its partners' experience in the project;
• 300 practitioners from public administration, think tanks, local NGOs, mass media, government officials, etc. participated in 8 world cafés, sharing ideas and opinions on the level of public participation in Romania, the efficiency of such processes and new ways of improving them.
• 16 NGO representatives from the project improved their capacity to develop non partisan activities during electoral campaigns;
• a public participation method, new in Romania, was successfully adapted, promoted and applied. It is the world café, a method used predominantly with CeRe's assistance by NGOs and the public authorities involved in projects of local interest (in Merisani and Nehoiu, for instance), but also used by CeRe in Bucharest, Craiova, Pitesti, Sibiu, Cluj, Arad, Constanta and Iasi.

[The project "Efficient Public Participation in the Local Decision Making Process" was financed by the Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe.]