www.uatmarenostrum.eu

e-Participation for regions and cities U@Marenostrum: the water management in the Mediterranean: lessons learned

Thursday, 17th February, 2011

at the Valencian Regional Office in Brussels, Avenue Edmond Mesens, 7a, 1040 - Brussels

ABSTRACT

In many European countries turnouts at local, national and European elections have been falling and there are numerous reasons for this. The most frequents ones is that perhaps voters feel their vote will not “make a difference” or that their concerns and opinions are not being listened to or acted upon. More widely, people have higher expectations as regards the quality and efficiency of public services as well as access to public institutions and elected politicians. There is greater demand for public services and information to be customised to their needs and available at a touch of button, or click of a mouse. Achieving this would require improvements in the way public services are provided today.

Local and national Governments together with the EU institutions are working with citizens to identify and test ways of giving them more of a stake in the policy-shaping process. ICTs provide a range of tools which can facilitate citizens’ access to information about what decisions are being taken which affect their lives and how the decision-making process works contributing to foster communication and interaction processes between politicians and government bodies on the one side, and citizens on the other.

Increasing transparency and public participation benefits democracy and should improve the quality of legislation being adopted. It is also good for the cohesion of European society since participation promotes a sense of ownership of the political process as well.

U@Marenostrum is a project co-financed by the EU program eParticipation that aims at supporting citizens and local actors to identify and solve important environmental problems related to the management of water and marine environmental protection in the Mediterranean regions in order to enhance their participation in the environmental legislative and decision making processes.

The objective of this conference is to present the results of the Mediterranean pilots and benchmark them with other projects related to the need of reconnecting ordinary people with politics and policy-making while facilitating the comprehension and the follow-up of legislative processes through the use of new Information and Communication Technologies.

Working language: English.