News / Actualities
Encouraging citizen participation as a basis for good governance at the local level
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Vrnjačka Banja, 28 February 2020
Representatives of 30 local self-governments participated in the training, and Milena Nedeljkov, representative of the Office for Cooperation with Civil Society, also contributed to the training. She presented the role of civil society organizations in the process of enacting regulations and the mechanisms of their participation. Guidelines for the inclusion of civil society organizations in working groups for making proposals for public policy documents and drafts, i.e. draft regulations and ways in which the Office for Cooperation with Civil Society provides support to the government authorities for involvement in the work of working groups and other advisory authorities were specifically presented.
The participants of the training also discussed specific examples and dilemmas concerning the application of the principle of citizen participation in the decision-making process and the contribution of participatory democracy to representative democracy. The workshop was also dedicated to the approach, normative framework, practice, instruments and challenges in the participation of citizens without the right to decide ("soft participation"), as well as participation with the right to decide ("strong participation"). During the training, knowledge about civic activism and the practice of participatory budgeting in local self-governments was improved.
The training is part of the broader support with which the Government of Switzerland, through the Swiss PRO Programme, supports municipalities and towns to create the basis for improving governance and public sector practices at the local level. Support to local self-governments includes the implementation and improvement of e-Government and the provision of e-Services to citizens and businesses, consolidation of local regulations with the new laws, as well as e-training and peer exchange workshops conducted by Swiss PRO in cooperation with the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities.