North Rhine-Westphalia II: Online approaches to increase public participation (DE0043)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address? Many citizens in North Rhine-Westphalia would like to be more politically involved. Politicians and government have been responding to this for a number of years now with a growing range of participation procedures at various levels. Here, the internet offers an opportunity for even greater involvement by taking participation online. In North Rhine-Westphalia this has been trialled in recent years in a number of flagship pro-jects, and various activities permitting citizens to get involved online at an early stage. Ex-perience with these schemes has been varied. Local governments, too, are increasingly us-ing digital forms of participation. According to the Monitor "Online Participation" run by the Online Participation NRW research college at the Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and De-mocracy (DIID), around a third of local governments in North Rhine-Westphalia already have some experience with online public participation and have set up the relevant procedures. Despite this, potential remains to increase both the number and the quality of services at the Land and local government levels. In particular, to date there has been no central infra-structure for conducting formal and informal online participation processes that could be used by Land and local authorities alike, and that would give the public easy access to such processes.

What is the commitment? The declared aim of this commitment is to improve the quality of public participation in digital form in North Rhine-Westphalia, to increase the number of such facilities within the Land, and to make it easier for all citizens to begin using all of the Land’s different means of participation.To achieve this, the Land government is planning to introduce a Land-wide participation portal (www.beteiligung.nrw.de) which re-uses software developed for the Free State of Saxony. This allows citizens to get involved digitally, at an early stage and in various ways, in shaping policy and administration in their communities. The participation portal will be further developed in line with changing needs in close collaboration with the local govern-ments of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Land authorities, and the Free State of Saxony as cooperation partner. The target here is broad use of the technical tool to integrate and anchor public participation in administrative processes in North Rhine-Westphalia. A Land-wide marketing campaign is scheduled to accompany the launch of the portal within Land and local authorities. This will include a roadshow, for example. There are also plans to offer users open forums for exchange and networking, such as a discussion group on public participation. In the inter-ests of improving the standard of participation processes, work is to continue to formulate joint guidelines for public participation at both the formal and informal levels.

How will the commitment contribute to solving the public problem?Once launched, the participation portal will provide a Land-wide infrastructure that is available to all Land authorities and local governments free of charge for their formal and informal participation processes.54This will enable not just the authorities, but also districts, cities and municipalities in North Rhine-Westphalia to target and include a broad section of the public individually in decision-making processes. Guidelines for digital public participation help to increase the quality of online participation, and make it easier for government employees to conduct such processes.

Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?This approach, of using online participation to strengthen inclusion in North Rhine-West-phalia, elevates a transparent, digital and participatory culture of government. The central participation portal offers the public the opportunity to find out about participation process-es at Land and municipal level, thus increasing transparency. Meanwhile, the participation tool gives citizens the chance to contribute their ideas and expectations to policy-making and the procedures of government. This strengthens democratic values, encourages policy acceptance, and helps to counter growing fatigue towards politics in general. The quality of online participation may also benefit from specific guidelines in this area.

Additional information• Open Government Working Group (German): https://open.nrw/der-arbeitskreis-open- government• Open.NRW office: https://open.nrw/• Digital Strategy for NRW: https://www.digitalstrategie.nrw

Milestones Start date Implementation by Technical enhancement of the participation portal Ongoing Launch of the Land-wide participation portal within the Land and municipal authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia September 2021 August 2023 Kick-off event / roadshow to mark the launch of the participation portal within government and suitable bodies at Land and municipal levels September 2021 March 2022 Draft of guidelines on public participation October 2021 March 2022 Training courses and user workshops September 2021 August 2023 Networking to share experience and opinions; network discussion group Ongoing

Action Plan Review

Commitment 8.3 (North Rhine-Westphalia): Online approaches to increase public participation