TuTech Innovation GmbH

feil@tutech.de

Harburger Schlossstrasse 6-12
21079 Hamburg, Germany

Solution Provider

The city of Freiburg im Breisgau used the DEMOS approach (https://www.epractice.eu/cases/demos) combined with the DEMOS budget planner (www.demos-budget.eu) to conduct a participatory budgeting trial from 7 April to 9 May 2008. The goals were to engage members of the public in participating in planning the city’s budget for 2009/10 and to generate ideas and knowledge for savings and efficient spending. In addition, the aspect of gender budgeting was introduced to address gender-specific issues connected to the city’s budget.

eparticipation, Participatory-Budgeting, demos

E-participation or e-democracy, respectively, is an important part of Hamburg’s eGovernment strategy described in the 5th e-government action plan (5. E-Government-Aktionsfahrplan) issued June 2006. The action plan, to which all departmental authorities have contributed, describes concrete services as well as potential fields for future eGovernment applications and planned projects. All projects have been assessed according to the following criteria: - contribution to the implementation of governmental priorities - size and importance of the target group - use of existing technological infrastructure Moderated Internet discussions are seen as an excellent means to facilitate the interaction and political communication between government, administration and citizens. Furthermore the city of Hamburg’s initiative is also inline with Germany’s national eGovernment strategy 2.0 – Das Programm des Bundes. The strategy promotes the usage of Internet forums by public bodies in order to to facilitate the development towards an inclusive and participatory society. Hamburg’s engagement for moderated Internet discussions as an e-participation instrument contributes to the achievement of the European Commission’s “i2010 eGovernment Action Plan: Accelerating eGovernment in Europe for the Benefit of All”. The action plan incorporates an action on “Strengthening citizen participation and democratic decision-making in Europe” stating that “Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can play an important role in helping to address new challenges in the involvement of citizens in decisions-making, to cope with the increasing complexity of the legislative processes and to improve legislation”. Finally, the DEMOS approach, which is the methodological and technological basis for Hamburg’s Internet discussions is currently used or further developed by two projects funded by the European Commission in the eTen programme or the eParticipation inititiative, respectively.

DEMOS, TuTech