European eDemocracy Award 2008

27. May 2008 – 22:05 by POLITECH

EUROPEAN eDEMOCRACY AWARD 2008

The European eDemocracy Award is an annual award honouring the most valuable European eDemocracy initiative amongst 50 selected websites in EU 27 featuring a wide range of eDemocracy tools and content strengthening eParticipation, transparency, representative participatory democracy and citizen participation in the democratic decision-making processes at the European, national or local levels of governance.

50 eDemocracy initiatives and websites across the EU 27 are selected for the European eDemocracy Award 2008 and analyzed according to 2 combined innovative indices:

The IP-LABEL INDEX is a ratio out of 20 measuring these initiatives in terms of availability and performance over a month period.

The POLITECH INDEX is a ratio out of 40 measuring these initiatives in terms of innovation, usability, content and diversity of technology and tools strengthening participatory representative democracy in Europe and reflecting 4 key dimensions:

1) The Political Dimension – measures the use of ICT to empower, activate and mobilize political and civil society actors to meet public affairs objectives, while being on top of the political agenda;

2) The Democratic Dimension – measures the use of ICT to strengthen citizen participation in the democratic and decision-making processes and enhances representative democracy.

This a key dimension as emphasized by Dr. Lawrence Pratchett’s C.L.E.A.R. Model in which people participate when they can and have the necessary resources to make their argument and when they feel part of something, they like to participate as it is part of their sense of identity, when they are enabled to do so and directly asked for their opinion and when they experience a responsive system;

3) The Civic Dimension – measures the use of ICT to inform, train and educate constituents, citizens and activists about their institutions, representatives, political processes, decision-making and governance structures;

4) The Technological Dimension – measures the diversity of ICT tools proposed, the use of convergent technologies, availability, performance, usability, accessibility and innovation.

The EUROPEAN eDEMOCRACY INDEX, a ratio in per cent measuring the democratic contribution of a given initiative and its technological performances, combines POLITECH INDEX (weight 40) and IP-LABEL INDEX (weight 20).

EUROPEAN e-DEMOCRACY INDEX = POLITECH INDEX + IP-LABEL INDEX * 100

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Last year winner was …

The European eDemocracy Award 2007 was bestowed upon:

Burger@Overheid – Dutch e-Citizen Programme

POLITECH INDEX: 28/40
IP-LABEL INDEX: 15.1/20
EUROPEAN e-DEMOCRACY INDEX: 71.83%

An initiative of the Dutch Ministry of Interior and being part of the ICTU, the Dutch implementation organization for ICT in the public sector, It’s an independent platform stimulating the development of e-Gov from the citizen’s point of view. It involves citizens, advises government bodies and monitors progress, while regularly conducting surveys with its own People’s Panel and annually granting the Webwise Awards for good practices. It proposes an e-Citizen Charter setting quality standards defining multi-channel relationships between government. This Charter was adopted by both national and local Dutch governments and recommended by the OECD as guidelines.

This year winner can be … YOU!

If you are submitting until 14 July 2008 your intiative of project with a short description of your initiatitive to:

danielvl@politech-institute.org or laurencer@politech-institute.org

The Winner will be invited to the World eDemocracy Forum 2008, Issy-les-Moulineaux, France.

For more information on the World eDemocracy Forum

For more information on European eDemocracy Award and its annual report

Tags: e-Democracy, e-participation, eDemocracy, eParticipation