Participatory solutions to public problems (IAS0003)

• What’s in the 2019 Action PlansParticipatory Policymaking (August 1, 2020)

Lead implementing agency/actor: Iași Municipality - Local Administration Communication department / Open Government Office/ Compartment/ Staff

Other stakeholders involved: CIVICA Association, The Center for Public Innovation, OGP Multistakeholder Forum working group

What is the public problem that the commitment will address?
The lack of a communication mechanism between the local public administration and the civil society of Iasi (citizens, NGOs, private sector, academia) both in what regards the identification, prioritization and the solving of issues/projects in the community, and the use of the civil society’s expertise/ know-how for discovering and developing intelligent and innovative solutions for raising the citizens’ quality of life. In this context, in the coming years, an important challenge for civil society will be to identify coherent modalities of action and resources to support open governance through institutionalized mechanisms that provide clarity and predictability by standardizing the public consultation process so as to prevent it from falling into a mere formality. Although there are still no concrete studies to measure the level of collaboration between local public administration and civil society, the lack of a stable collaboration mechanism often leads to problems in the understanding and support of some projects proposed by the public administration. Even if this need is widely known, in general, concrete solutions have yet to be proposed

What is the commitment?
Measure proposes the creation of Design4Community, which aims to develop a
mechanism of public participation that supposes a collaborative process
(administration, academic environment, the private environment, and the civil society)
in order to identify, prioritize, and develop innovative and intelligent solution to some
community issues.
Design4Community involves the use of the design thinking methodology at the
stage when solutions are identified to the problems prioritized by the community. The
measure is transformative and ambitious in nature, aiming to change the paradigm of
the relation established between institutions and citizens in order to promote
collective interests and identify the most suitable solutions for various community
problems.
Design4Community is a permanent mechanism for co-creation which, through
repetition, has the potential of becoming the new standard of a stronger relation
between public administration and citizens, a relation characterized by higher trust in
institutions and a smoother implementation of collaboratively found solutions.
Moreover, the mechanism is a scalable process that significantly contributes to the
open government partnership standards. Through its results, Design4Community
could become an example of good practice, both for local Romanian administrations
and administration bodies worldwide.
In order to implement the public participation mechanism Design4Community, an
online platform will be developed by adapting the open-source CONSUL instrument
(Madrid).
The implementation of Design4Community, through the open government Office/
Compartment/ Staff of the Iași City Hall, involves the following stages:
1) Facilitating the process of registration and prioritization of citizens’ issues;
2) Organizing the workflow in order to identify collaboratively the solutions to the
issues prioritized by the community through the design thinking methodology;
3) Coordinating the process whereby the community is consulted on the solutions
developed collaboratively to the problems prioritized by the citizens;
4) Monitoring the implementation of the solutions and evaluating the progress
made. During the period 1 September 2019 – 31 August 2012, the co-creation mechanism
Design4Community will be implemented for at least four times, for four distinct
problems identified and prioritized by the community. The duration of the
implementation of the four stages of the mechanism is of approximatively 5 months /
problem

How will the commitment contribute to solve the public
problem?
The Design4Community mechanism creates a channel of constant communication
between local public institutions and the citizens, facilitating the access to and the
exchange of information between institutions and citizens. The mechanism allows
citizens to participate in identifying issues and implementing solutions, it holds public
institutions and citizens accountable, and it uses the community’s expertise.
Design4Community uses technology for a smooth, direct and free exchange of ideas,
opinions and information between citizens and public authorities.

Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?
Design4Community strengthens and makes permanent the basic principles of an
Open Government Partnership by bringing together citizens, specialists and public
authorities to generate innovative solutions for public issues. The implementation
process facilitates monitorization and leads to better real-time solutions. The
Design4Community mechanism also allows for the continuous improvement of
problem prioritization processes and for finding appropriate solutions to them.
Design4Community contributes to a higher accountability and transparency of public
institutions. Most importantly, it creates a continuous, stable and predictable
framework for a productive collaboration between the citizens of Iasi and the
institutions that serve them.