Promoting the use of national portals for public participation (TN0057)

Description of the commitment: To entrench the principles of participatory democracy and the openness of the administration to its environment with a view to serving its clients, notably the citizens, many e-portals, applications and e-participation mechanisms are now hosted on public websites at the central and local levels. The National E-Participation Portal http://www.e-participation.tn and the e-people portal http://www.e-people.gov.tn are key cases in point. Both portals provide mechanisms to engage citizens in public affairs by organizing public consultations, submitting ideas, participating in a dialogue forum (e-participation portal), reporting, submitting complaints and suggestions, requesting information, participating in a dialogue forum, and reporting on corruption (the e-citizen portal). Despite their importance, the solutions provided by the two portals remain mostly underused, mainly because of limited human resources in terms of portal administration and the limited financial resources dedicated to the development and the absence of an effective communication plan to increase the rates of its use, in addition to the similarity in some of the channels it adopts to engage the citizen. In consequence, as part of this commitment, the following actions will be undertaken: - Further develop e-participation national portals, notably http://www.e-participation.tn and http://www.e-people.gov.tn and urge public bodies to leverage them for the purpose of public participation while ensuring more consistency of the sections under each portal, - Increase the use rates of the portals by the various clients of the administration, especially the citizens, by means of an effective communication plan designed to this end. As part of the implementation of this commitment, a joint working group will be created, comprising representatives of the concerned departments and a number of civil society representatives, in order to follow up and coordinate the various stages of implementation of this project. Public consultations will also be organized in order to take into account the citizens' expectations regarding the improvements that can be made to these portals and the priority axes that they may include. A space will be allocated within the national portal for public participation to publish various data related to public consultations that are organized through these portals and how to adopt the results of these consultations for public decision-making and public policy perception.

Problem/Background: - The proliferation of portals on citizen engagement in public affairs, the overlap in terms of the mechanisms and channels they provide, and the limited communication and promotional activities around these portals led to many problems, notably: - The need to strengthen human resources at the level of portal administration to ensure ongoing content updating and the processing of applications, proposals and notifications within the specified deadlines, - The need to merge the too many public participation portals. - The fact that the various mechanisms and channels provided by these portals to engage citizens in public affairs are underused calls for further communication activities around the portals to promote public awareness and urge citizens to use them.

Identification of commitment objectives/expected results: This commitment will ensure: - The further development of the two portals (www.e-participation.tn and http://www.e-people.gov.tn) and increasing their effectiveness and use use by public bodies, - The two portals are merged to facilitate their use by the citizen, - Higher use rates by the citizens and clients of the administration towards more participation in public affairs.

How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem: - Provide mechanisms to enable the effective participation of citizens across the country and abroad in decision-making and the management of public affairs through following up on the issues of public interest, notably the design of public policies and programs and the monitoring of their implementation.

Relevance with OGP values: -Participation: This commitment will help to operationalize and diversify the mechanisms available to engage citizens in the management of public aairs. -Transparency: All data on public policies and reforms will be published along with data on citizen participation in this regard.

Source of funding /Relation with other programs and policies: State budget

Stages and implementation timeline: Technical improvements to the portals: http://www.e-participation.tn and “e-people” and the extension of their use to a larger number of public structures. From January 2022 - December 2023; Reinforcement of capacities in the field of public participation through the organization of training courses for the benefit of public officials (100 persons). From September 2021 - December 2023; Conception and the definition of a communication plan to increase the rates of use of e-participation national portals by the citizen From September 2021 - December 2023

Action Plan Review

9. Promoting the use of national portals for public participation

Results Report

Commitment 9. Promoting the use of national portals for public participation

Commitment 9 aimed to promote the use of the national portals for public participation. The E-Government Unit as well as the Central Bureau for Citizen Relations of the Presidency of Government sought to do so through technical enhancements and capacity building. However, efforts to date had not yet translated to widespread public participation through the e-people and e-participation platforms.

There were efforts to enhance the technical aspects and capacity building for online public participation, but the full impact on increasing public engagement and interest is yet to be fully realized. Some technical improvements to the e-People platform supported by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Korean government. [33] This marked the partial completion of the first milestone. In terms of capacity building, the commitment surpassed its initial target under Milestone 2 as 28 training sessions were conducted, benefiting 183 public officials—considerably more than the target of 100 officials. The development and implementation of a communication plan to enhance public use of these portals was still underway. ^[34] Workshops were held in September 2022 with OECD support to formulate recommendations to improve the technical and communications aspects of the e-participation platform. [35] The first day included public officials and the second day included civil society and web developers. However, technical improvements were not made to the e-participation platform within the implementation period. [36]

There remains an opportunity to synchronize the use of the platforms across government services and departments and to standardize their use in government processes. There was a missed opportunity to demonstrate the utility of these platforms during the public consultation launched by the Presidency of the Republic in 2022. This suggests a need for more strategic planning in leveraging these platforms for significant national initiatives. ^[37] Furthermore, robust communication strategies could better promote these platforms among citizens.

Enhancing the management of e-participation platforms, establishing a unified strategy, and revising legal frameworks related to e-participation remain key areas for progress. Additionally, there is an opportunity to bolster human resources for their administration and effective operational use. Overall, the commitment’s aims of increasing the platforms' efficiency and utility by securing support from top political levels and incorporating them into a standard government structure, potentially expanding their reach through mobile applications and additional portals, ^[38] were not achieved during the action plan period. Despite efforts, progress remains to enhance public usage and awareness of online participation portals as well as integration across online tools. The platforms represent an asset for participatory governance, but their value could be better realized through improved synchronization, strategic use in public consultations, and enhanced communication efforts.