Inita Pauloviča is currently the advisor to the Director of the State Chancellery of the Republic of Latvia on public administration policy issues.  She is the former Deputy Director of the State Chancellery and has played a key role in developing an innovative co-creation platform – OpenLatvia – to allow citizens and civil society organizations to submit ideas to improve 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 and 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....

OpenLatvia was created to give citizens a voice and allow them to propose concrete ideas for change. How did this digital platform differ from previous co-creation processes?  How useful did the Chancellery find the initiative? 

OpenLatvia was the first platform created to listen to people’s voices for the OGP co-creation process. The partner we worked with, ManaBalss (MyVoice), is a well-known civil society organization in Latvia, as they are behind the popular platform citizens use to submit citizens initiatives to the parliament or for referenda. In Latvia people can launch legislative initiatives and when they collect 10,000 supporting signatures, Parliament has to consider the initiative. There’s no guarantee it will become law, but it’s still a fantastic mechanism for people to get engaged, think about, and discuss ways to open our government.

But why did we want to use a crowdsourcing platform to co-create the latest open government action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen...? Normally, in the legislative process, it is civil servants who put forth ideas and civil society organizations (CSOs) – at best – comment on them through public consultations. In the past we used to issue calls for expressions of interest to cooperate with us on the action plan and then discuss in workshop sessions. CSO partners however pointed out that it was difficult to comment on ready-made ideas and expressed interest to be able to initiate ideas.

This year, because of COVID-19, we couldn’t organize large gatherings. Remote was a must, and our goal was to use this as an opportunity to get new ideas from new people. So, with OpenLatvia, it wasn’t only civil servants that could propose ideas, but also citizens. Using this digital platform helped us to gauge discussion and get additional ideas from new people. Before, people could send ideas via email, but using an open platform for this specific purpose allowed everyone to see others’ ideas and provide feedback as well. Therefore, citizens could also support and vote for other people’s ideas so that the most popular ones could be further considered. But ideas are only ideas. It’s also important for those proposing them to ‘own’ the initiative and take some responsibility to promote among and collaborate with other CSOs. Last, but not least, ManaBalss’s experience in analytics and algorithms was very useful to hammer out some difficulties and ensure effective feedback to those who submitted ideas. 

Former Deputy Director of State Chancellery Inita Pauloviča meets with OGP Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Pradhan and team to discuss open government strategies during a visit to Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš and Director of State Chancellery Janis Citskovskis in Riga, Latvia in 2019.

Tens of thousands saw the initiative and hundreds of citizens submitted a total of 105 reform ideas of which 94 were sent to the Chancellery for further deliberation. The final open government action plan was approved by the Cabinet and the Prime Minister this February. How did you make sure that people’s ideas were discussed and then become operational? How would you say citizens’ ideas contributed to shaping the content of the final action plan? 

Our very first step was to promote the opportunity the upcoming action plan offered, asking partner CSOs to generate a few initial ideas – and we at the State Chancellery did the same. These initial ideas were used to prepopulate the platform to encourage additional ones from the public. Interested citizens could consider these or add their own ideas. We received a lot of submissions, and after sorting them, we shared them with line ministries and civil society partners to get their comments in a follow-up round. There followed an intensive internal process and eventually the final approval by the cabinet of ministers was given for a well-considered, all-round consulted action plan. 

Ultimately, the platform showed that ideas earlier considered as lower priority, like participatory budgeting for municipalities, are indeed valued by the public: they made it back into the action plan, due to CSOs and citizen support. Other ideas, like anti-corruption and open procurement, made their way onto other strategies like Latvia’s EU Resilience and Recovery Facility (RRF). Another example is plain language. Initially it wasn’t considered an important topic, but with the help of OpenLatvia we realized that often citizens don’t understand what the government is talking about: that the first step must be building trust and understanding.

The consultations across various stakeholders also helped us to stay disciplined and earmark funding for initiatives. We know this is important, because when funding is identified, commitments are more effectively implemented. While there is no dedicated fund for open government as such in Latvia, there are many related envelopes of EU funding that can be used for such purposes. For example, the 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... on plain language and public participation workshops will use RRF funding. Where we couldn’t find resources for a specific initiative, it was up to the responsible agencies to look for appropriate funding.

Would you recommend using such a tool to other countries? ​​How does the Chancellery plan to make sure citizen engagement remains a priority now that the action plan is getting implemented? 

A tool is a tool. It’s nice to have them for very concrete purposes. In our case it proved to be very good to get initial ideas and organize them. There is still room for improvement but it worked well as a crowdsourcing platform. At the same time, no tool would work if there is no genuine interest and political will for including people. For us it is also important to give citizens the opportunity to acquire skills to engage in dialogue, listen, propose and follow up on ideas. By doing this you create a culture of motivation, personal ownership, civic reward, and duty.  

The OpenLatvia platform helped us create an easy bridge between ideas and concrete actions that are implementable. That’s why I’m very happy about the tool and this action plan. 

To ensure citizen engagement throughout the implementation of the action plan, we use formal and informal tools: from the Memorandum Council overseeing all NGO-government interactions, to partners and umbrella organizations like the Latvia Civic Alliance working as the main coordinating NGO of multi-stakeholders initiatives. 

We believe that the way the process is currently organized for feedback will bring ideas to life. We have clear owners and responsible co-implementers that will be held accountable by the State Chancellery and the public, while also providing support to those who are potentially lagging behind.