Transparency of public consultations (FR0100)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address? Participatory initiatives are being used to address an ever-growing number of issues, at every level and at every step of a project. Nevertheless, the full potential of citizen participation is far from being tapped. For now, just a small portion of citizens have taken part in such initiatives. Citizens remain wary of the participatory initiatives implemented, as little follow-up contact is made with participants and its impact on decision-making can be hard to discern or nearly devoid of transparency. To meet this requirement, the CIPC is launching, with oversight from the Ministry for Relations with Parliament and Citizen Participation, an online platform which lists all consultations government departments have held on a voluntary basis since the start of the current presidential term and publicises the outcome of each of these initiatives, in order to provide citizens with visible, transparent information.

What is the commitment? Citizen participation initiatives involve citizens in the design, implementation and monitoring of public policies. By providing a complete list of these initiatives launched by government departments, this platform will meet the government’s transparency commitment to citizens who want to be informed of what becomes of their suggestions after a consultation.

How will the commitment contribute to solving the public problem? The participation-citoyenne.gouv.fr platform raises the profile of government action in the area of citizen participation and seeks to inform the public about every consultation exercise held. The platform will allow citizens to: 1. learn about upcoming, ongoing or past consultations 2. view the outcome of a past consultation 3. find out how citizens’ views were taken into account after a consultation and their influence on decision-making and public policymaking

Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values? By meeting citizens’ need for more information about consultation exercises, this commitment will help improve the accessibility and quality of the information communicated before, during and after a consultation. It also serves to get citizens acquainted with this form of participation, while increasing the transparency of government action with respect to citizens.

Additional information To carry out this project under optimal conditions and to secure its relevance and legitimacy, the CIPC plans to hold detailed discussions with ministries by appointing citizen participation officers. These discussions will give the CIPC the most complete view possible of the consultations that have been held in recent years. As a cross-cutting project, it involves all ministries.

Milestone activity with a verifiable deliverable Start date End date Platform launch 09/2021

Action Plan Review

Commitment 50. Make citizen participation initiatives visible and transparent

● Verifiable: Yes

● Does it have an open government lens? Yes

● Potential for results: Unclear