The Minister of Foreign Action, Institutional Relations and Transparència, Bernat Sole, has presented the portal for participation professionals, ParticipaCatalunya.cat, as part of International Open Government Week.
ParticipaCatalunya.cat is a sectoral portal for professionals and experts in citizen participation in Catalonia that was born with the strategic objectives of creating community and sharing knowledge in this field. ParticipaCatalunya.cat joins the project TransparenciaCatalunya.cat to complete the country's vision and mission in matters of Open Government.
It is a virtual meeting space for all actors working in the field of citizen participation whose main objectives are:
- To help identify and publicize the actors working in the field of citizen participation in Catalonia, as well as their specializations and environments and instruments of preferential action.
- Contribute to making explicit the tacit knowledge of these actors through the dissemination and open publication of all types of resources and instruments of citizen participation - guides and methodologies, procedures and protocols, technology, materials, etc.
- Create and dynamize communities of practice and learning to share knowledge and identify and promote consensus strategies for the evolution of citizen participation as a discipline.
- Disseminate activities on citizen participation in Catalonia from a dual geographical and thematic perspective.
- To become a point of reference on the activity of the members of the Transparent Governments Network, especially in terms of training activities, publications, services and other resources related to citizen participation.
- Facilitate adoption on the platform Decidim to the municipal bodies of Catalonia, making it available to them centrally and at no cost.
- Provide a testing environment for platform administrators Decidim which allows them to become familiar with the tool as well as carry out practices required by training programs.
One of the main actors of the ParticipaCatalunya.cat is the Network of Transparent Governments (XGT), of which the AOC is a part. This portal will become a point of reference on the activity of the members of the XGT, especially in terms of training activities, publications, services and other resources related to citizen participation.
ParticipaCatalunya.cat will facilitate access to the platform "Decidim” to the municipal bodies of Catalonia, making it available to them centrally and free of charge. This action derives from theagreement of the Plenary of the Network of Transparent Governments of Catalonia in July 2020, to boost the platform Decidim Catalunya in the local world and the decision of the Secretariat of Transparència and Open Government to entrust the AOC Consortium with the provision of this service. In this way, it will be possible to guarantee that all local governments in Catalonia have the tools to develop citizen participation processes, with a shared, collaborative service at no cost to user entities, with special emphasis on the reality of small municipalities.
The governance of the new service with the different actors is currently being defined, and it is expected that this year it will be available to the first pilot councils, with the intention of starting to offer the service in the territory from 2022.
