Action plan – Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic, 2024 – 2026

At-a-Glance

Duration

Oct 2026

Date Submitted

4th June 2024

Foreword(s)

Open Government Partnership (OGP) is an international initiative involving more than 75 countries, 150 regional and local self-governments, and 3,000 civil society organizations. OGP members are reformers who together promote an open approach to public governance, built on the principles of transparency, cooperation, and participation. Since 2016, local governments have been able to join this initiative and Banská Bystrica was the first self-government in Slovakia to join OGP Local as of 2020. OGP Local in Banská Bystrica is an initiative to develop open self-government and has an informal consulting body, the CoLaboratory Board. The Open Government Action Plan for 2024–2026 (AP OG 24–26) represents a commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... of the City of Banská Bystrica to continue developing the principles of cooperation, participation, and transparency in further cooperation with the OGP international initiative. AP OG 24–26 describes the implementation mechanism of the open government strategy titled the Banská Bystrica Open Government Roadmap 2030. AP OG 24–26 emphasizes internal innovations in the Municipal Office (MO), capacity buildingEnhancing the skills, abilities, and processes of public servants, civil society, and citizens is essential to achieving long-lasting results in opening government. Technical specifications: Set of ac..., and reducing polarisation in the city. It is a live document as the implementation of the concrete steps will involve experimenting, continuous monitoring, and evaluation. It may be necessary to modify and supplement the action steps due to the dynamically changing conditions.  The creation and implementation of AP OG 24–26 have been successfully interconnected with another action plan, which is currently being created by the city and will be tested in terms of the AGENTS OF CO-EXISTENCE project via the URBACT IV program.  Thanks to this project, the city has secured funding for testing some of the AP OG 24–26 action steps and accessed the community of experts from the member EU cities, which provides opportunities to exchange experiences and learn from each other.

Open Government Challenges, Opportunities, and Strategic Vision

What is the long-term vision for open government in your context and jurisdiction?

The city decided to keep developing open governmentwith the belief that proper dialogue, trust, and cooperation among stakeholders from various sectors and levels of public administration allow the city to tap into the collective intelligence and expert knowledge necessary to produce innovative, effective, and sustainable solutions to the current complex challenges. Novel, complex, and constantly changing challenges and societal phenomena to which the self-government must respond include strong polarisation of society, technological innovation (especially in the areas of Industry 4.0 and 5.0 – digitalization, Artificial intelligence), radical climate change, global security challenges, and migration phenomena on the local level. The increasing complexity of societal phenomena requires original approaches to public governance such as the open government principles. In the long-term, the city considers the OGP Local as an innovation process to achieve a cultural change – a shift in the way of thinking about public administration in the Banská Bystrica self-government and its reflection in practice, i.e., the institutionalization of open government as well as the systematic application of the transparency, participation, and cooperation principles. The experience gained shows that it is a complex and systematic innovation process, which requires experimenting, time, consistency, and endurance.

What are the achievements in open government to date (for example, recent open government reforms)?

During the last two years, the following tools were created and introduced to promote innovation in open government (OG):

• The Banská Bystrica Open Government RoadMap 2030 provides a strategic framework for the development of OG;
• The CoLaboratory Board as a cross-sector consulting body for the support of the innovation in OG in our city;
• CoLaboratory as a specialised tool promoting cross-sector participative processes of cooperation;
• DECIDIM for implementation of online participative processes;
• Internal Breakfast concept to support collaboration and mutual learning between employees of municipal office.

International projects and cooperations have been established:

• Agents of Co-Existence project via the URBACT IV (connecting 9 EU cities led by Genk) with the aim of building employees’ capacity as well as new tools and structures for supporting innovation in OG inside of Municipal Office
• Cooperation with OECD, DG REGIO and JRC on two projects, namely the Innovative Implementation of Partnership Principle in Cohesion Policy and Peer Review of the Integrated Territorial Urban Strategy.

High-quality participative processes such as Green Settlements, City Park or Ideathon took place. The last process as part of the Integrated Territorial Strategy of the Banská Bystrica. Additionally, physical voting for the Participative Budget were made online while the Department of the Participation and Innovation in the Area of Open Governance was established. Finally, one new position was created within the OGP team.

What are the current challenges/areas for improvement in open government that the jurisdiction wishes to tackle?

The challenges related to the further OG development in our city include building/increasing the capacity to develop open government, institutionalisation of OG, adoption of OGP across all Municipal Office agendas, gradual innovation, and transformation (through educationAccountability within the public education system is key to improving outcomes and attainment, and accountability is nearly impossible without transparent policies and opportunities for participation ... and awareness raising ) and reducing polarisation in the city.

What are the medium-term open government goals that the government wants to achieve?

The Banská Bystrica Open Government Roadmap 2030 was created as part of the First Action Plan for 2021–2022.  It provides a strategic framework for the development of open government (OG) until 2030. The OG vision of the city of Banská Bystrica (until 2030) has been formulated as follows: The self-government of Banská Bystrica will be built on the principles of open, systematic, and partner communication and cooperation with the citizens, experts, associations, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders in all areas related to citizens’ lives and city development. To fulfil this vision, the city plans to achieve the priorities in the areas of innovation, cooperation, participation, and transparency via activities such as experimenting with new tools and cooperation models, creation of OG directives and guidelines, capacity building, research and exchange of experience with OG, seeking funding for OG development, increasing the quality of external relationships through depolarisation strategies and informal activities, consulting and co-creation of policies and projects with the citizens and experts, quality planning, facilitation (dialogues and meetings) of participative processes, specialised communication strategies, infographics and timelines to communicate the Municipal Office projects and policies important for citizens’ life and city development, improving the access to information through better monitoring and evaluation of  projects, and analysing the needs in the area of open dataBy opening up data and making it sharable and reusable, governments can enable informed debate, better decision making, and the development of innovative new services. Technical specifications: Polici....

How does this action plan contribute to achieve the Open Government Strategic Vision?

AP OG 24–26 presents the implementation mechanism of the OG BB Roadmap 2030 and defines the priorities and action steps in OG development for 2024–2026 as follows:

• Continuing the innovation process in open government;
• Building capacities for OG in the city;
• Systematically applying the cooperation principle at the MO and externally;
• Promoting depolarisation in the city.

How does the open government strategic vision contribute to the accomplishment of the current administration’s overall policy goals?

The vision of OG formulated in our Open Government Roadmap  is stated as follows: The self-government of Banská Bystrica will be built on the principles of open and systematic communication and cooperation with the citizens, associations, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders in all areas related to citizens’ lives and city development. By doing so, we believe we will be able to achieve increased quality of the co-creation processCollaboration between government, civil society and other stakeholders (e.g., citizens, academics, private sector) is at the heart of the OGP process. Participating governments must ensure that a dive... in various public policy areas with an immediate impact on the quality of the solutions created within this process; and increased quality of relationships within the city.

Engagement and Coordination in the Open Government Strategic Vision and OGP Action Plan

Please list the lead institutions responsible for the implementation of this OGP action plan.

• Department of the Participation and Innovation in Open Governance of Municipal Office
• Head of Municipal Office
• Mayor’s Office
• Municipal Office’ Department of Development of the City
• Office of the City Architect
• Dialogue Centre n. o
• NOVA Information Management School (Lisbon)

What kind of institutional arrangements are in place to coordinate between government agencies and departments to implement the OGP action plan?

The implementation of the OGP action plan will be supported by coordination tools and working groups such as the CoLaboratory Board, the CoLaboratory platform and internal municipal meetings.

What kind of spaces have you used or created to enable the collaboration between government and civil society in the co-creation and implementation of this action plan? Mention both offline and online spaces.

The main stakeholder platform for the creation of AP OG 24–26 was the CoLaboratory Board, i.e., a community of people from various sectors (public administration – Municipal Office, civic society, City Council members) who share the interest in the development of open government in the city. Important stakeholders in the creation of AP OG 24–26 included Municipal Office experts, political management (Mayor and the 2nd Deputy Mayor of the City of Banská Bystrica), executive MO officer (Head of the Municipal Office), and broader public. The stakeholders regularly attended informal meetings using the CoLaboratory and Internal Breakfast platforms as well as the Human Forum conference. The outcomes of these meetings were recorded in text form and shared on Google Drive and Miroboard. Data interpretation and finalisation of the Action Plan took place during the 2nd phase in autumn and all participant groups were involved. In terms of finalisation, intensive discussions with the political management of the city and MO executive were held.

What measures did you take to ensure diversity of representation (including vulnerable or marginalized populations) in these spaces?

To ensure the diversity of participant representation, the CoLaboratory Board was helpful since it associates people from various sectors (public administration – Municipal Office, civic society, City Council members). The list of CoLaboratory Board members can be found here: Rada Spolupracovne.

To ensure the participant diversity, meetings were held at different places, not only at the Municipal Office but also in public spaces, e.g., the AP OG 24–26 workshop at the Human Forum conference attended by 15 students.

Who participated in these spaces?

The stakeholders participating in the creation of AP OG 24–26 included:

• CoLaboratory Board – a community of people from various sectors (public administration – Municipal Office, civil society, City Council members);
• Experts, studeents and broader public;
• MO experts;
• Political management of the self-government;
• MO executive officer;
• Network of EU cities involved in the Agents of Co-Existence project.

How many groups participated in these spaces?

8

How many public-facing meetings were held in the co-creation process?

12

How will government and non-governmental stakeholders continue to collaborate through the implementation of the action plan?

The cooperation between the MO representatives and external civic society stakeholders will take the form of regular meetings facilitated by the CoLaboratory Board using the CoLaboratory platform.

Please describe the independent Monitoring Body you have identified for this plan.

The implementation of the Action Plan will be monitored by the Head of the Department of Public Economy and Regional Development at the University of Matej Bel in Banská Bystrica. The AP OG 24–26 implementation will be evaluated as per the OGP requirements and will include the creation of the inception report, end-of-commitment report, and final learning exercise.

Provide the contact details for the independent monitoring body.

• Katarína Vitálišová, Head of the Department of Public Economy and Regional Development, University of Matej Bel

What types of activities will you have in place to discuss progress on commitments with stakeholders?

The key activities include regular and continuous monitoring of the OG development progress and the implementation status of the AP OG 24–26 action steps. This will be achieved through regular informal meetings involving the political leadership of the self-government, Municipal Office executives, MO experts, CoLaboratory Board members, ad hoc work groups, and other stakeholders.

How will you regularly check in on progress with implementing agencies?

The cooperation between the MO representatives and external civic society stakeholders will take the form of regular meetings facilitated by the CoLaboratory Board using the CoLaboratory platform.

How will you share the results of your monitoring efforts with the public?

There will be a communication campaign to inform the stakeholders and broad public about the progress via an institutional website, website of the partner civic organisations, social media, and a specialised conference on open government planned for 2025.

Endorsement from Non-Governmental Stakeholders

• Anna Vaňová, Economic Faculty, UMB
• Katarína Vitálišová, Economic Faculty, UMB
• Michaela Kováčik Huľuková, Dialogue Centre, n.o.
• Henrieta Sujová, Office of the Government Plenipotentiary for Roma Communities
• Vladimíra Ezr, Representative of people with special needs
• Eva Mazancová, Community Leader
• Jessica Môciková, Student
• Natália Baladková, Student