Organized by National Open Administration Network (Network) and by the Platform of Civil Society Associations - Citizenship House (PASC), after a brief presentation of the framework for the activities of the Open Government Partnership Portugal and the NAPs, the session featured a presentation by Luís Vidigal, member of the PASC Board, who addressed, among other topics, the socially established image of public entities and Administration Public, the confrontation of roles and perspectives or possibilities and possibilities of civic involvement and the exercise of a more active and informed citizenship.
The second part of the session, which had about 25 participants, was the discussion forum, with identified some relevant themes and lauched different challenges and the respective opportunities, as described bellow:
Context /Theme
Challenges / Opportunities
Role of social networks in active citizenship
Enhance the role of social networks in active citizenship initiatives, avoiding demonization and contempt; pedagogical perspective of user education.
Relevance of open data, as a fundamental support for the exercise of informed citizenship
Sharing of data by public entities in effectively open formats, avoiding “dead data” and closed formats (example: PDF), which are not very appealing or accessible;
Consolidate the real commitment of public entities to the disclosure of open data;
Qualitatively improve the data provided and develop mechanisms for effective integration;
Privileging the availability of data via web services or integration mechanisms;
In the context of "open science" and citizen science ", create mechanisms and lines of action with a view to creating bridges between Public Administration services and academia, aimed at facilitating the use of open data for research purposes, in order to that the burden ceases to fall exclusively on the academy and the entities that produce research;
Promotion of the sharing and opening of data to public entities and civil society by the academy, with a view to enhancing possibilities for reuse and creating informative value;
Commitment to open data as a mechanism for creating value for the economy; progressive establishment of a 'circular economy' of data.
Barriers to the relationship between the state administration and citizens
Creation / promotion of mechanisms for listening to citizens and participating in public decisions, processes and procedures;
Prioritizing mechanisms for simplification and productive relevance that facilitate access to State administration;
Inclusion of policies for listening to citizens and participatory citizenship in the political programs of government parties;
Governments' commitment to fulfill their political programs;
Greater information on public processes, with a view to rebalancing perspectives and expectations;
Listening to citizens as a principle and with the concrete aim of improving and defining public policies, and not as a utilitarian or legitimizing instrument for other purposes;
Break the "organizational silos", by which the procedures appear compartmentalized and dispersed by different entities, forcing the citizen to take multiple steps, many of them eventually suppressable;
In a co-creation logic, foster a permanent interaction between civil society and public administration, in PDCA cycles - Plan, Do, Check, Act -, with a view to analyzing individual and collective experiences that contribute to the redefinition of policies and services or to the creation of new policies and services.
Focusing public services on the citizen
Centralize the provision of public services in the citizen's "life stages" or "life journey";
Foster a culture of listening to citizens, with a view to meeting their specific needs;
Improve communication with the citizen, in qualitative terms and giving an effective and timely response to their contacts and interactions;
Generalize the principle of "single contact" and minimize the requirement for certificates and evidence, through the integration, sharing and opening of data and information between public entities.
Please find bellow the key contents of the webinar below:
