Georgia State vs. Romania

Georgia’s state and local governments are more committed to protecting their citizens from possible unethical behavior of their public officials than the Romanian authorities. At the state level, Georgia has an Ethics Commission and ethics legislation in place. “It is declared to be the policy of the state to protect the integrity of the democratic process and to ensure fair elections; to institute and establish a requirement of public disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures and to make sure that the state’s public affairs are best served by disclosures of significant private interests of public officers and officials which may influence the discharge of their public duties and responsibilities” (The Georgia Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Act of 2010).

What is more important though is that the Commission is actually investigating cases that can be seen online. I could search over 700 cases which ended in administrative dismissals, commission orders, compliance agreements, consent orders, or dismissals. Romania, on the other hand, has a national agency called “The National Agency for Integrity.” Apart from the big bureaucracy that is regulating it, one can hardly find 100 cases of investigations.

At a local level, it is notable to mention the outreach efforts of nonprofits that are urging local administrations to pass ethics legislation. Such a program is the “Certified Cities of Ethics Program,” run by Georgia Municipal Association and supported by a large number of organizations. The program emerged after concerns over a trend towards less confidence in public officials. Certification under this program is a way to recognize cities that have adopted principles and procedures that offer guidance on ethical issues, along with a mechanism to resolve complaints at the local level. To become cities of ethics, local administrations first need to adopt a resolution subscribing to five ethics principles:

1. Serve others, not ourselves.
2. Use resources with efficiency and economy.
3. Treat all people fairly.
4. Use the power of our position for the well-being of our constituents.
5. And create an environment of honesty, openness and integrity.

Second, they need to pass an ordinance that contains definitions, an enumeration of permissible and impermissible activities by elected officials, due process procedures for elected officials charged with a violation of the ordinance and punishment provisions for elected officials who have been found in violation of the ordinance.

The program has already certified 226 cities, 3 counties and 5 organizations. It is a very good track record, although there is still much work to be done given that the State of Georgia has 159 counties and 624 cities and townships. In Romania, the behavior of the county and city council members is vaguely endorsed by the Charter of the County / Local Council:  elected County / City Council officials have to conduct their activity with honor and correctness; it is forbidden for them to request money, goods or advantages. Council members also file a declaration of interests and a declaration of assets.

What is at stake? A lot of money. Here is some budget data for fiscal year 2011 in the State of Georgia and Romania. These budgets pay for our education, healthcare, security, transportation infrastructure, to name but a few. They provide the backbone of our lifestyle and for having better communities.

State of Georgia (United States) budgets vs. Romania budgets

From my point of view, one of the greatest challenges to have stronger ethics legislation put in place is to raise awareness among citizens that ethics in government is important to their communities and to their increased standard of living. We need to find methods to engage them more effectively in the debate about ethics reform and give them stronger tools to put pressure on elected officials to pass ethics legislation. (Article published on Common Cause Georgia’s blog).

Common Cause Georgia works to ensure that the political process serves the public interest.

Part of my line of work at Common Cause Georgia, United States is to assist in the development of a local government ethics board. Ethics seems to be something that everybody talks about and knows about, but one can feel the effects of lack of ethical behavior in the community, especially in the developing countries. But what is government ethics? One definition that I particularly like is given by Robert Cusick, Director of the United States Office of Government Ethics: “That system of laws and procedures which tends to ensure that official government decisions are informed by the public interest and not corrupted by private interests. The core of that system is the identification and disclosure of conflicts, which is followed closely by measures to remove or remedy the conflicts. Accountability and transparency are the cornerstones of those efforts.”

An ethical organization should embrace at least three essential elements:

1. A code or set of principles which is enforceable.
2. Ethical leadership of the organization.
3. And an ethical culture that arises from the first two.

The US Federal Government issued legislation that ads 14 more principles that broadly define the obligations of public service.  Underlying these 14 principles are two core concepts: employees shall not use public office for private gain, and employees shall act impartially and not give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual.

As Thomas Jefferson said, “the whole art of government consists in the art of being honest,” it is vital that citizens choose their elected officials with great care. The first step to do that is to actually go to vote and elect people who they consider are most ethical, as these people not only make important decisions but also appoint key governmental executives. The back-up plan for that is for citizens to put pressure on governments to establish the position of “ethics officers” or have the initiative and courage to run for elected offices.

My work experience with Common Cause Georgia is facilitated by the Community Solutions Program, funded by the US Department of State’ Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and implemented by IREX: www.flickr.com//photos/irex/sets/72157627500775854/show/with/6073410682/

The Community Solutions Program (CSP) kicked-off with an orientation meeting in Washington, DC, United States. Inspired by President Barack Obama’s experience as a community activist in Chicago, the program aims for global community leaders to improve their capacity for local community intervention and problem-solving and be ambassadors for increased mutual understanding. The first edition of the program brought together 66 community leaders from 21 countries who were matched up with organizations from over 20 U.S. different states. CSP is funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and implemented by IREX.

CSP fellows acquire a global peer network and build relationships with U.S. practitioners, learn tools and models for effective organizational leadership, learn strategies and best practices to address economic, environmental, political, or social challenges, and strengthen their ability to solve community problems.

Taking part in this program is both rewarding and stimulating my future plans. I’ll be working with Common Cause Georgia!

Raise a problem of European public concern

People do not participate in the life of their community trying to influence decision makers to implement solutions to problems of public concern, due to reasons that include lack of success stories of civic engagement, lack of time, lack of money, lack of motivation, lack of knowledge about issues, lack of accountability, lack of efficiency, and lack of leverage of the participative processes. Every-day people have great creative potential and need the tools to bring their constructive solution ideas to community problems, to the desks of appointed and elected officials. This situation is affecting both public authorities  and every-day citizens. The former do not benefit the most from the citizen’s creative potential, while the latter become more indifferent towards what is happening in their social – economic environment, more reluctant towards the decision makers and more enraged towards the public administration system and the political environment in general.

In a previous blog post I was writing about the importance of success stories of civic engagement. I am now going to tackle other problems that are affecting the level of civic engagement in various communities.

Lack of time is a major component of the problems that citizens have when they want to engage in participation attempts. Specialists, entrepreneurs and other stakeholders are engaged in various projects and leave little to none time for the community. To be actively engaged, they need to dedicate time to travel to public authorities, to wait, and to discuss issues. This may take at least two hours, which is huge time in an already-packed agenda.

Lack of money is more prevalent to the members of various organizations, when they want to organize civic engagement projects. The initiatives have the goals to identify and define solutions to problems of public concern, to discuss them and to recommend the most feasible ones to decision makers for community action. These attempts have costs associated with accommodation and food for participants, rent, transportation, and logistics. As a result, civic engagement attempts are rarely organized, when organizations manage to receive funding.

Lack of motivation is another major problem that is affecting the degree of engagement in the decision-making process. Scholars argue that citizens need a motivation to participate. The motivation may be related to the opportunity of the citizen to be promoted, to the existence of a prize, or to the interactivity of the participation exercise. Either way, citizens use valuable time and resources to participate, so they need something in return. The more a participation attempt contains a motivational offer, the more it has chances to engage grater audiences, who contribute with better solutions. I personally consider that a participation exercise should at least offer participants recognition for their efforts, in the form of publicity.

Lack of knowledge about issues: this problem is more prevalent to participation projects that last for little time and engage more people. Participants, who may be randomly- or self-selected, do not know all the time enough information about the issues being discussed. Moreover, they do not have time to do proper research during the participation or consultation exercise. I consider that the longer the participation endeavor, the more time people have to think about issues and thus propose better ideas.

To be continued.

The training ENGAGEMENT

The training “ENGAGEMENT” combines theoretical and practical elements of public policy analysis with theoretical and practical elements of participative democracy. It is ideal for organizations that have members who want to engage in solving problems of public concern in local, national or Europe-wide communities.

The training course can be adjusted to various formats. It requires at least 3-4 hours and can be extended up to 3-4 days. The basic structure is made up of three parts:

Public Policy and Civic Engagement, theoretical approach: participants develop skills about feasibility of public measures, alternative ways to solve problems, winning support and trust from certain stakeholders, and implementing the right strategy to meet the objectives and mission of the organization. Special attention is given to the legal framework of the organization, lobby groups, mass-media, budgetary limitations, creativity, institutional partners, and ethics in public work. Participants also become aware of the barriers of participation and the motivation that makes citizens engage constructively in their communities.

Civic Engagement: this practical component is using two methods of participative democracy: World Caffee and SMART Method of Public Policy. Once the problem is properly defined and explained, it is published on one of the citizen engagement platforms of SMART Method, www.politicipublice.ro for local and national communities in Romania or www.public-policies.eu for Europe-wide communities, and a problem’s page is created. The solutions to the problem being addressed are then discussed in the World Caffee, where participants work at different tables under the guidance of rapporteurs. At the end, the rapporteurs make a plenary presentation of the solutions brainstormed in the working groups, which are then published on the problem’s page. Important note: participants are served with refreshments and snacks during this exercise .

Policy Making: during the last stage of the training, participants analyze various scenarios to solve the problem being addressed, getting inspiration from the solution proposals made during the World Caffee and published on the citizen engagement platform. The end result is a policy paper that recommends the most valuable, sustainable and feasible solution to the institution that is able to allocate resources and implement the recommendation. The policy paper is published on the problem’s page from the citizen engagement platform and enters the steps of SMART Method of Public Policy. After the training, participants can engage in lobby activities so that the policy paper receives a favorable answer from the target institution. The answer is also published on the problem’s page and the person who had published the problem can be satisfied with it and approve it or not, according to the procedures of SMART Method of Public Policy.

I organized such a training, which lasted for approximately 3 hours, to the members of the National Alliance of Student Organizations from Romania. The problem we addressed was related to the camps that the Ministry of Education was supposed to offer to the students with high academic standing during the school year. These camps were canceled for the first time in 20 years:

1. First, we talked about theoretical elements of public policy and civic engagement

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2. Then, we defined the problem and published it on the Romanian citizen engagement platform www.PoliticiPublice.ro

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3. Solutions were brainstormed during the World Caffee

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4. The rapporteurs presented the draft solutions in plenary

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5. The solutions were published on the problem’s page, entering the steps of SMART Method of Public Policy (step 2)

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Participants saw the results of their efforts right at the end of the training session. In this case, the solutions they brainstormed can be seen on the problem’s page and are summed up below:

• The Ministry of Education should provide for student camps during the vacation between the two semesters (February – March). The camps would last for only four days and would target students from low-income families on one hand and students with academic achievement on the other hand. The camps should also offer various training courses so that students develop soft skills like communication abilities, leadership, or entrepreneurship.
• Universities may provide for student camps from their own resources.
• The Ministry of Tourism could contribute with camp locations, promoting Romanian attractions within students.
• The Ministry of Education could apply for European Union funding to cover the costs of the student camps.

Working group on promoting access to e-participation: Nicky (UK/Holland/Sudan), Radu (Romania), Federico (Italy), and Claire (Belgium/France).

The recommendations below are aimed at making e-participation more important in generating change in the community. They are the result of the working group on “promoting access to e-participation” organized within the Expert Seminar New Ways of Participation in Multicultural Youth Work from Budapest, Council of Europe Youth Center, during June 14-18 2010. Good working time with Nicky, Federico and Claire .

Recommendations to Youth organizations. They should:

• Empower, develop and promote the use of e-participation tools such as social networks, interactive platforms, audio-video materials, to their members. These tools should be structured and developed into a strategy to approach disadvantaged neighborhoods.
• Combine the e-participation tools with regular face-to-face meetings.
• Organize trainings and workshops to develop e-participation skills.
• Engage authorities and civil society representatives in virtual meetings in order to shorten the distance between the two sides and generate a structured dialogue.
• Create e-learning opportunities for young people, adjusted to the specific problems of their disadvantaged neighborhoods.
• Develop e-youth work to prevent dangers on the web, by training courses and exchanges of good practices.
• Network better between themselves to exchange good practices, success stories and tools of participation and e-participation.

Recommendations to Researchers. They should:

• Create evaluation tools to monitor the effectiveness of e-participation activities in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
• Better identify and explain the status-quo or the problems in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
• Implement specific participatory endeavors to young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods.
• Identify the disadvantaged neighborhoods and shape their profiles.

Recommendations to Policy makers (local, regional and national authorities). They should:

• Develop free internet coverage in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
• Develop and encourage structural dialogue so that at least once a month they are engaged in participation or e-participation activities.
• Support the work of youth organizations by providing materials, spaces and funding opportunities to them.
• Be more engaged in partnership agreements with NGOs and the private sector to attract more resources to the local community.
• Offer recognition to the participation and e-participation activities that make a difference in the community.
• Use grants/vouchers/other types of support to help young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods to acquire technological equipment.
• Train policy makers in the benefits of e-participation opportunities in their line of work.
• Ensure the presence of at least one youth centre adequately equipped with computers and other materials necessary for e-participation, in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
• Have user- and youth-friendly websites.
• Have multiple language support of the websites of public authorities in multi-ethnic neighborhoods.

Recommendations to European institutions. They should:

• Encourage all of the member states to develop the job of youth worker.
• Develop the profile of e-youth work.
• Act as the driving force to implement policy change at a high European level.
• Organize and support training courses at European level for e-youth work. They could be long-term and sustainable, followed-up by e-platforms.
• CoE recommend the members of CLRAE to encourage and be more involved in e-participation activities in their neighborhoods.
• CoE use CLRAE to share good practices of e-participation as a way to solve or better address community problems.
• The European Commission could allocate more resources to help disadvantaged communities use e-participation tools.
• European institutions could make participation in disadvantaged neighborhoods a priority in their line of action.
• European Commission should make a more effective promotion of the e-consultations on various topics when working on draft papers.

More details can be found on ENTER project website.

• To explore the concepts of youth participation and e-participation.
• To explore current trends of e-participation in multicultural youth work.
• To explore the challenges of inclusive multicultural youth work and how e-participation can be a tool to overcome these.
• To analyze the motivation of young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods for e-participation, as well as the effects of e-participation on their social inclusion and democratic participation.
• To exchange experiences and good practices of e-participation in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
• To explore ways of overcoming digital divide and ensuring that e-participation is democratic, inclusive, meaningful and empowering for young people.
• To make recommendations on promoting  e-participation as a mean to support the access to social rights for young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Here’s a presentation of the results of a working group on challenges to youth participation and e-participation:

There are some good research documents that the Council of Europe has issued so far. They include the “Revised European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life,” the manual “Have your say!” which is related to the implementation of the Charter with young people, the report of the seminar “New ways of participation based on information technologies” organised by the DYS in 2009 where SMART Method of Public Policy is also mentioned, and the Agenda 2020. The seminar is organized under the framework of ENTER project on access to social rights for young people from disadvantaged neighborhoods.

And here are some relevant photos:

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• Either approve the response and thus close the problem’s page.
• Or disapprove the response. In this case he/she will state the reasons and the participation process is started again.

The page of a closed problem on www.public-policies.eu

• Red: the problem has been approved by an administrator.
• Orange: the problem has received at least one solution.
• Yellow: the project partners have published a policy paper.
• Light green: the target institution has issued a response.
• Dark green: the problem poster is satisfied with the answer or the action of the target institution.

The lower part of the problem’s page contains the form that allows citizens to publish their solutions to the problem of public concern in question.

Tip: Once you publish a problem, use the “share” widget to promote your problem in order to get as many solutions as possible.

The page of a problem of public concern, on www.public-policies.eu

The first step is to raise a problem of European public concern, click-ing on the “Raise a problem” link:

Raise a problem of European public concern

Then, fill out the “Raise a problem of public concern” link. Instructions are on the right-hand side of the online form:

Raise a problem of European public concern