Welcome to the Ljubljana Open Space planning site.

Building citizen centred policies and services -International workshop

Ljubljana, Slovenia 26-27 June 2008

--------------UPDATE--------------- 

 Thank you to all who took part in the Open Space Event. We had around twenty five participants from a variety of backgrounds. Sessions were held on the following topics:

•  Instruments for Community Empowerment
• eDemocracy experiences in Slovenia and elsewhere
• Ways of improving citizens' awareness of the implementation status of the Millennium Development Goals
• Building global Coalitions of NGOs for the Copenhagen Summit on Climate Change in 09
• Creating a Global Democracy Index

 Reports from these sessions will be posted by the rapporteurs on the forum section of the site. Pictures from the event will also follow shortly.

------------------------------------------------------------------

The Ljubljana International Workshop on ‘Building citizen centred policies and services’ is jointly organised by OECD and the government of Slovenia in partnership with CommGAP, DECIM, ECAS and Involve

Like many other international conferences, this workshop will provide inspiration and knowledge to its participants. However, many conferences end without the space to take action or develop partnership beyond the event itself. For this reason Involve and Umanotera will be running an ‘open space’ event after the official closure of the conference.

Much energy and enthusiasm is created at workshops and conferences, and while the participants may have the best of intentions to follow up, the hundred of emails waiting back at the office often mean that any actions are relegated to the bottom of the pile.

This open space event provides you with the opportunity to ensure that this does not happen to you by providing you with a space for open and equal discussion between conference attendees and members of the Slovenian civil society organisations, allowing participants to take forward actions they have identified previously, develop partnerships of interest and build ownership of conference outcomes.

You should attend this event if you want to:

• Share ideas with like-minded participants and NGO representatives
• Develop project ideas the conference has given you
• Learn from others across countries
• Network with an interesting range of participants

Structure: The event will be held in the conference venue from 14:30 until 16:30 on the 27 of June 2008 after the official closure of the OECD conference. The event will be lightly facilitated and will aim to provide a welcoming, creative and participant driven space. Participants will organise around issues and work in breakout groups, reporting back at the end of the event.
This is a space for the participants to lead. We do not provide fixed agenda, you bring your interests and concerns to this web space and we will build the agenda on the day from this. We will also post the results of the event on the web space.

Please check out the pages in Slovene!

These are the results of the workshop with Slovenian NGO representatives, held on 4 June in Ljubljana, as a part of preparations for the forthcoming OECD Conference.

POLITICAL CULTURE:
- interactive participation vs. lack of time
- democratic deficit in cooperation between the state and the civil society
- how to find/generate political will (in countries with no such tradition)?
- commitment of decision-makers to provide feed-back to comments
- political dimension of NGO: capacity & active citizenship
- NGO coordination - proactive role in the forthcoming parliamentary elections?
- why NGOs lack interest in civil dialogue?

STANDARDS OF DEMOCRACY:
- laws and regulations vs. other softer approaches
- EU common standards for citizen participation in decision-making processes
- regulation of communication channels between the state and the civic sphere - through consultation mechanism

COMMUNICATION CHANNELS:
- using a variety of participation techniques
- stronger media support
- higher culture of dialogue
- reduction of administrative burdens
- exchange of good practice in e-participation
- face-to-face contact vs. World Wide Web
- the role of media in civil society participation

GOVERNMENT SUPPORT:
- tax legislation: incentives for donations
- support for NGO work
- capacity building of state officials for inclusive processes
- NGOs capacity for participation
- what motivates NGO to participate in decision-making?
- impact of NGO projects on quality of life

OTHER:
- social / political participation of minorities (weaker members of society)
- common, public space vs. private space
- civil and social dialogue (wishes, needs, experiences, requirements)
- opportunities for NGO involvement on local/regional levels (with local, regional governments)