Under the Open Sky

Level of Participation

• Partnership

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Developed practice(s)

The idea of the project was designed in close cooperation between Boryslav city park administration, Boryslav city council and civil society (CSO’s, volunteers, entrepreneurs etc.) as each of them played equally efficient role in the common success of the initiative. Only in partnership there was a chance to involve within the voting process more than 3,000 people, to co-finance the project from city budget and to implement the initiative in very short terms. The partnership was also based on interaction of public authorities (as the organisers of the contest of the All-Ukrainian national PB)  and Boryslav City Park (as participant) and the organisation implementing the winner project.

Step(s) of the political decision-making process at which the practice was implemented

• Inputs/Incentive ideas for policy
• Decision – making on policy
• Implementation of policy
• Monitoring of policy implementation

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How the initiative was implemented

Situation

The All-Ukrainian Public Budget (PB) is an innovative program that was implemented in 2020 in Lviv region for the first time. It is a tool which allows the participation of citizens of Lviv region (aged 18 and older), influencing the distribution of state funding by submitting projects and conducting open public voting for selected projects.

At the beginning, almost no one believed in the project. Boryslav’s City Council signed a memorandum of cooperation with Drohobych and Truskavets’ city councils and submitted a joint project for the All-Ukrainian Public Budget that involved the purchase of three electric vehicles for tourism development. The project became an example of community gathering. We managed to develop an effective action plan and following it step by step, we designed the logo of the project and printing products that were spread all over the city. Our groups of volunteers were on duty at the ATMs and bank offices day after day, involving local residents in the voting. The specialists of the administrative service center served primarily the lined up groups of people occupying almost the entire area of the square in front of the city council building. Most residents did not believe that it was possible to win just like that. But the project was supported by more than 3,000 Lviv residents, and it won. When the residents came to the grand opening of the rope park, they felt the real involvement to the implementation of the project. People had seen that change could be made without great financial expense on their part but only due to their active participation in the decision-making.

Activities performed

• Participation in the training for project authors and applicants provided by the organisers.
• Consideration of ideas by the Working Group for the implementation of the All-Ukrainian Public Budget in the Lviv region, during which the authors could receive a draft for editing.
• Registration of the project on the e-dem platform.
• Establishment of a project team of at least 20 people from different organisations representing civil society, local authorities and business with a clear division of responsibilities and tasks.
• Development of an action plan and mechanisms for its implementation.
• Providing voting and advertising campaign to obtain the highest number of votes and 30% of the total number of votes.
• Ensuring public participation at all stages of the project through a broad information and promotion campaign.
• Identification and approval of winners by the Regional Commission.
• Implementation of the project by the end of 2020.
• Realization of the idea and a sense of belonging to the changes in the community of all those who took part in the project.

Tools and mechanisms applied

• Production and distribution of leaflets and posters with information about the project and voting conditions in the city in public transport, park, streets, crowded places (supermarkets, bus stops, market, city council, social services…), near Privat24 ATMs.
• Publications of internet resources and social networks: websites, Facebook pages and groups, personal profiles of the participants of the initiative group, bloggers and those who support the project.
• Publications in local and regional media resources: “Warto-Galician News” portal, Zik, “First Western”, “Slovo” radio etc.
• Information and promotion campaign according to which messages were created and distributed for each target audience through its communication channel (printing, media, stories, QR codes, posters, mobile applications such as viber, messenger, telegram, whatsapp, etc.).
• Group and self-to-self meetings with the citizens, discussions, email newsletter. Brainstorming to stimulate new ideas for involving people into the voting process.
• Engaging the organised groups of students to vote in the administrative service center and also, we managed to organise a group of volunteers standing by the ATMs and consulting people on how to vote for the project for the whole 10-days of voting period.