Action plan – Timișoara, Romania, 2022 – 2024

At-a-Glance

Duration

April 2024

Date Submitted

27th April 2022

Foreword(s)

Open government brings a change of approach to local government by strengthening the relationship with citizens. This presupposes that everything that is outlined as a solution through public policies be developed through a process of consultation and debate. The result will be a solution and an implementation plan built and delivered together with the community for the community.

Based on this premise, the process by which this Local Action Plan (PLA) was developed was a consultative one with several steps to involve the community. The broad process can be consulted here: https://decidem.primariatm.ro/processes/procesul-open-government-partnership/steps.

The steps for identifying the commitments and the elaboration of the PLA were coordinated by a local initiative group constituted by Local Council Decision no. 321 of 07.09.2021 regarding the approval of the Protocol of collaboration between the Municipality of Timișoara and the Banat IT Association, the Smart City Association, respectively the AID-NGO Foundation. One of the main activities of the group was the elaboration of the methodological guide for the operationalization of the open government at local level. The guide was also submitted to a public debate on 05.11.2021, a debate attended by 25 people. Following the debate, amendments were made, and the guide was approved by Local Council Decision no. 489 of 21.12.2021. In November 2021, the initiative group started working on building the vision and identifying the commitments for the Local Action Plan (PLA), and on 26.11.2021 there was a public debate to validate the vision and prioritize actions, meeting at which 15 representatives of the community participated.

Through the four commitments included in this first Local Action Plan, we aim to create the premises for a strong mechanism through which the community is not only transparently informed, but has the capacity to become an active partner of the Municipality.

Letter from the Mayor Dominic Samuel Fritz

Open Government Challenges, Opportunities and Strategic Vision

This subsection details the Open Government Strategic Vision in your local area that should guide the commitments for the action plan period.

What is the long-term vision for open government in your context and jurisdiction?

“Timișoara, as an inspiration for other local communities, is the city where public administration and civil society together create opportunities for any citizen to be involved in public decisions on quality of life and community development.”

What are the achievements in open government to date (for example, recent open government reforms)?

In recent years, Timisoara Municipality has carried out several major projects which used the principles, tools or OGP methodology. For instance, in 2016, Timisoara won the title of European Capital of Culture with a participatory design program. The main objective of this program is to transform the local community into an open, participatory, responsible, connected and innovative city. Other projects launched in 2021-2022:

• Covid19.primariatm.ro – the official website for COVID 19’s situation in Timisoara. It aggregates information from the Government, the hospitals in Timisoara, vaccination centers and is updated daily with all the government regulations.
• Oxigen.primariatm.ro –  “Oxygen for Timisoara ” a campaign started by Timisoara Municipality along with 14 NGOs gathering more than 350000€ to buy oxygen concentrators so people suffering from COVID 19 can be treated at home, keeping more beds in hospitals for severe patients
• Data.primariatm.ro – Timisoara’s first Data Portal that was launched in March 2021 with 30 datasets (​​health, educationAccountability within the public education system is key to improving outcomes and attainment, and accountability is nearly impossible without transparent policies and opportunities for participation ..., culture, infrastructure, environment, mobility etc.).
• Decidem.primariatm.ro – Timisoara’s first participative democracy platform where  we also launched the first participatory budget of our town.
• https://buget.primariatm.ro/ – an online platform for consultation on the 2022 budget of Timisoara Municipality.
• timisoarapentruucraina.ro – a platform aggregating local efforts to support refugees coming from Ukraine.

What are the current challenges/areas for improvement in open government that the jurisdiction wishes to tackle?

• Civic engagement – currently there is a low level of civic engagement and citizens’ participation in decision making processes (public debates or consultations)
• TransparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More, open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici... and digitization – open data is one of the modern means of increasing transparency and efficiency in the administrative field, tool that is not currently properly implemented in Timisoara Municipality
• Low or poorly used competence to develop the local administration’s capacity in correlation with its mission: to serve the citizen and increase his quality of life.

What are the medium-term open government goals that the government wants to achieve?

The main goal of open government is to improve citizen’s quality of life.

Strategic directions for open governance:

1. Develop a strong partnership with civil society organizations to implement the principles of open government in Timisoara
2. Create the premises for all citizens to be well represented, informed and involved in public decisions
3. Timisoara – a city characterized by intelligent sustainable development
4. Transfer of good governance practices to other cities in the Euroregion and in Romania

Taking into account the starting point and the long-term vision, this first Local Action Plan focuses on two priorities:

• Strengthen the internal capacity of local government to develop an open framework for public participationGiving citizens opportunities to provide input into government decision-making leads to more effective governance, improved public service delivery, and more equitable outcomes. Technical specificatio...
• Strengthen the capacity of citizens and civil society to actively participate in the implementation of open government in the Municipality of Timisoara.

How does this action plan contribute to achieve the Open Government Strategic Vision?

The first PLA is focused on:

1. Building capacity of the local government to implement in Timișoara an open framework for citizens involvement 
2. Building capacity of the citizens and community organizations  to get involved în the open government implementation in Timisoara

The next PLAs will focus mainly on creating opportunities for citizens and community organizations to partner with the local government in solving community problems.

How does the open government strategic vision contribute to the accomplishment of the current administration’s overall policy goals?

One of the 5 strategic direction of the current administration focuses on digitalization integrating principles of open government through:

• eliminating corruption, streamlining and empowering officials through transparency;
• focusing public services on the needs of the citizen, not the administration;
• facilitating the participation of Timisoara residents in public decisions.

Moreover, Timisoara’s diversity has been a driver for innovation for years. Using collective wisdom to tackle challenges of the local community is a core principle of the current administration and has proven it’s added value in projects such as Oxygen for Timisoara (https://oxigen.primariatm.ro/#/) and Timisoara for Ukraine (https://timisoarapentruucraina.ro/en/).

The integrated current administration’s program can be found here: https://www.dominicprimar.ro/program

Engagement and Coordination in the Open Government Strategic Vision and OGP Action Plan

Please list the lead institutions responsible for the implementation of this OGP action plan.

• Timisoara Municipality
• AID-ONG Association
• Banat IT Association
• Smart City Association

What kind of institutional arrangements are in place to coordinate between government agencies and departments to implement the OGP action plan?

In 2021 the Local Council of Timișoara Municipality approved a partnership for implementing open governance at the local level, partnership between Timișoara Municipality, AID-ONG Association, Banat IT Association and Smart City Association. One of the main activities of the group was the elaboration of the methodological guide for the operationalization of open government at local level. The guide was also submitted to a public debate on 05.11.2021, a debate attended by 25 people. Following the debate, amendments were made, and the guide was approved by The Local Council through HCL no. 489 of 21.12.2021. In November 2021, the group started working on building the vision and identifying the commitments for the Local Action Plan (PLA), and on 26.11.2021 there was a public debate to validate the vision and prioritize actions, a meeting at which 15 community representatives interested in the subject of open government actively participated.

Within Timișoara Municipality there is support from both the Mayor’s personal counselor, Valentin Muresan, and a new department, Participatory Governance and Neighborhood Management.

The connection with OGP national and international is made through Dan Bugariu, president of Smart City Association.

What kind of spaces have you used or created to enable the collaboration between government and civil society in the co-creation and implementation of this action plan? Mention both offline and online spaces.

1. Online
   1. Weekly meetings of the Multiskateholders Forum
   2. Public debates and consultations

• for approving the methodology (this was also transmitted live on social media) – 25 participants
• for defining the vision, long term goals and validate main priorities and commitments for the Local Action Plan – 15 participants

2. Offline
   1. In May 2021, during the OGP Week, an event took place in Timișoara, during which the open data portal was launched, as a result of a project started in 2019, within the Upgrade My City program. The event clarified the Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More implementation path and aimed at informing the community and attracting a list of citizens interested in participating in specific OGP actions, 78 people registered to be engaged in the process;
   2. We plan to organize a hybrid debate to validate the Local Action in April 2022

What measures did you take to ensure diversity of representation (including vulnerable or marginalized populations) in these spaces?

All public debates were publicly announced and transmitted live to be accessible online to anyone even after the event.

For the Local Action Plan debate, planned for April 2022, we prepared a list of civil society actors to invite for a better representativeness (universities, NGOs addressing youthRecognizing that investing in youth means investing in a better future, OGP participating governments are creating meaningful opportunities for youth to participate in government processes. Technical ... More, minorities, people with disabilitiesA government is not open unless it is accessible to all, and governments are working to ensure people with disabilities are afforded equitable services and opportunities to participate. Technical spec..., elders and other vulnerable groups).

Who participated in these spaces?

1. Civil society (Smart City Assciation, AID-ONG, Timisoara Community Foundation, Banat IT)
2. Representatives from the business environment
3. Local public administration
4. Students and representatives of universities in the city

How many groups participated in these spaces?

4

How many public-facing meetings were held in the co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive...?

2

How will government and non-governmental stakeholders continue to collaborate through the implementation of the action plan?

• Weekly meetings
• Joint effort in attracting funds for implementing PLA
• Periodical evaluation

Please describe the independent Monitoring Body you have identified for this plan.

Corina Turșie, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Political Sciences, West University of Timisoara, Romania

Provide the contact details for the independent monitoring body.

• Corina Turșie, Senior Lecturer, corina.tursie@e-uvt.ro

What types of activities will you have in place to discuss progress on commitments with stakeholders?

• Online platform for transparent update on progress
• Meetings (face-to-face or online) to present achievements
• Recurring newsletter
• Open communication to the general public through social media and press release at least once per year

How will you regularly check in on progress with implementing agencies?

Each commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... will have a coordinator within the Multiskateholder Forum who will keep in direct contact with each implementing agency/agencies.

How will you share the results of your monitoring efforts with the public?

Open communication to the general public through social media and press release at least once per year

Endorsement from Non-Governmental Stakeholders

• Mihai Lisetchi, President, AID-ONG Association
• Costin Bleotu, President, Banat IT Association
• Dan Bugariu, President, Smart City Association

Timisoara’s OGP Local Action Plan development process