Decidim Barcelona (Barcelona - Spain)
Decidim Barcelona (Barcelona - Spain)
Barcelona’s Smart City Strategy has a holistic view of the city, comprising several projects that resort to technology as a transversal tool to manage the city’s resources and services in a more efficient way. Barcelona Digital City lies on three axis, each of which divides into three main pillars: Digital Transformation (Tech for better Government, Urban Technology, and City Data Commons), Digital Innovation (Digital Economy, Make in BCN, and Urban i-Lab), and Digital Empowerment (Digital Education and Training, Digital Inclusion, and Democracy and Digital Rights). The final goal of the whole strategy is to achieve a sustainable social, economic and urban development, thereby improving the quality of life of its citizens.
In the scope of the Digital Empowerment axis, pillar of Democracy and Digital Rights, Barcelona City Council created the democratic participatory platform Decidim.Barcelona for citizens to become a more active part of urban life. The aim of this platform is to allow citizens to collaborate in the creation and implementation of municipal policies through new participatory processes.
The digital infrastructure of the platform uses open-source software and open code, allowing any citizen to adapt and improve it.
Citizens who are interested in participating just have to register on the platform to be able to take part on any participatory process run by the City Council and open to public consultation, or even to create a new proposal to be discussed. This process makes the City Council more transparent and accountable for its commitments, objectives, actions, and results, while offering a thorough response on the suggestions made by citizens and the outcome of each proposal. The tool also facilitates the convergence of face-to-face and digital participation processes.
Sources:
Improved e-Governance and citizen services.
Description of the specific objectives:
- Build a more open, democratic and collaborative city;
- Improve the quality of municipal management;
- Work towards the co-production of public policies;
- Make citizens co-responsible for budgetary decisions.
Ajuntament de Barcelona (promoter).
- Guarantee citizens’ right to data protection, privacy and information access;
- Ensure that all citizens have equal opportunities to participate in the processes (the public meetings and debates must cover the topics that otherwise would only be available at the online platform);
- Promote a timely and exhaustive follow-up process on all the proposals.
Decidim participatory democracy platform (digital and public infrastructure that uses free open-source software and open code).
A citizen who is registered at the Decidim.Barcelona platform can consult the participatory processes, make new proposals, comment on the existing ones (both from the City Council and the citizens), support their favourite proposals by voting, share them on social media, and follow up on their development. If the citizen has no internet access he/she can also attend public meetings and local debates on several proposals of each process.
Data from 11 January 2018:
Participants – 27,704
Active processes – 7
Past processes – 10
Active initiatives – 3
Proposals – 12,173
Projects – 36
Responses – 10
Comments – 19,248
Encounters – 707
Votes – 188,609