Improvement of the decide Madrid platform (ESMD0002)

Commitment ID

ESMD0002

Commitment Title

Improvement of the decide Madrid platform, in order to encourage citizen involvement in decision-making on city matters

Problem

The Decide Madrid website is a tool to facilitate and encourage the direct and individual participation of citizens in city affairs. Neighbors can put forward proposals, create discussion threads, evaluate, comment on and support different proposals, and take part in participatory processes.

It is considered necessary to work on several lines of action in order to resolve the following aspects:
- Bringing the website closer and making it more attractive, providing more immediate attention to citizens, at any time and from any place.
- To deal with the enormous volume of information and contributions that Decide Madrid contains, which are not always responded to promptly and systematically, to the frustration of the public. Decide Madrid contains more than 232,000 comments, 30,000 proposals, and 5800 debates.
- To face in a collaborative way the new challenges and social problems of the city that have become evident after the pandemic caused by Covid.

Status quo

Decide Madrid is an already consolidated and recognized platform, immersed in a process of continuous improvement, and a continuous process of revision and innovation is necessary to keep it alive, in order to be truly useful and adapt to the new needs and demands of citizens.

Action

Improve the Decide Madrid platform, encouraging citizen involvement in decision-making on city matters from the following perspectives:

- Bringing participation closer to citizens as a whole, developing new functionalities that facilitate and improve the usability of the portal.
- Innovate through the application of artificial intelligence technologies that enable the classification and processing of content created by citizens and ensure an adequate response to the different contributions received.
- Collaborate with different actors (public, private, non-profit and individuals) in the development of new ideas to meet social needs through social innovation methodologies.
- Generate alliances with other public administrations and universities and promote the exchange of experiences and good practices in the field of citizen participation.

How will the commitment contribute to solving the public problem described above?

It contributes to meeting the needs through:
- The development of functionalities that improve the usability of the portal and favor a closer connection with users immediately (Responsive web design, adapted to mobile devices, smartphones, PDAs, digital tablets, integration of the platform in the Madrid Mobile City Council App, an extension of the Chat Bot "Clara" to all the contents of the Decide Madrid portal).
- Use of Machine Learning systems to exploit the Decide Madrid information and report on what the decisions taken are based on.

- Starting up a new social innovation space to support and enrich collaboration with other public administrations, universities, and social agents, and the private sector, as a laboratory of ideas and a meeting point for experts.
- Promoting the Community of Practice "The Participatory Group", which encourages collaboration for the exchange of good participatory practices.

What long-term goal as identified in your Open Government Strategy does this commitment relate to?

Promotes, strengthens and improves the quality of participation in public management, allowing citizens to participate in public decision-making, with the aim of achieving better results and higher democratic quality.

Raises awareness among society and public employees about the values of Open Government, favouring the collaborative design of public policies and innovation.

Primary Policy Area

E-petitions, Other/NA

Primary Sector

Cross-sectoral, Other/NA

What OGP value is this commitment relevant to?