10 passos práticos para e-democracia…
Como um dos objetivos desse blog é promover iniciativas e discussões sobre o desenvolvimento da democracia, no mundo moderno, achei interessante o artigo de Steven Clift da e-Democracy.org. Entretanto, creio que a mesma carece de uma adpatação para o cenário de uGov proposto…segue para o debate, afinal, esse é o caminho democrático…Grande abraço
1. Timely, personalized access to information that matters.
Government decision-making information is not really public or relevant if
people cannot act on it when it still matters. Give people tools like
personalized e-mail alerts based on keywords, location, etc. and eliminate the
“nobody told me” backlash government often receives due to poor public outreach.
Every government needs a “what’s new” democracy portal or a thematic section
covering all democratic processes as part of their main website.
2. Help elected officials receive and sort, then better understand
and respond to e-mail.
E-mail overload is the number one complaint I hear from elected officials
around the world. Most want to respond effectively, but simply aren’t being
provided the tools they need. If there ever was an opportunity for open source
collaboration among governments, this is it. In general, our representatives and
representative institutions must start to invest in the online infrastructure
they need to connect directly with the public they represent.
3. Dedicate at least 10% of new e-government developments to
democracy.
Let’s define democracy starting with public input. In an e-service
initiative, the 10% should start with citizen focus groups to guide the design
of the service, usability testing and studies to generate user input and
accountability, and post-transaction user surveys. If the investment is a new
content management system for information access, then use the 10% to add
personalization and survey input features or democratized navigation (those
nifty menus that show you the top ten articles viewed that day or week).
4. Announce all government public meetings on the Internet in a
uniform manner.
All public meeting notices, agendas, handouts, and digital recordings must be
online. The system should be standards-based and tie state-by-state systems into
a national network covering federal, state, and local government public
meetings. This is the only way for people to ask to be pro-actively notified of
any government public meetings within a certain geographic area addressing
specific topics that interest them.
5. Allow citizens to look-up all of their elected officials from the
very local to national in one search.
Along with the ability to look-up all public meetings, Americans should have
the right to easily determine who all the elected and appointed officials are
who represent them currently. Just before elected and appointed officials assume
office, every government unit should be required to submit contact information
for those officials into a national database.
6. Host online public hearings and dialogues (or “e-consultations” as
they are known outside the U.S.)
As in-person public meetings begin to incorporate live online features,
envision more deliberate online exchanges to improve the outcomes of the
decision-making process. If your government agency hosts three public hearings
across the country or your state, host the fourth hearing online over a week or
two and improve the format in the process. In 10 years, the legislatures,
commissions and city councils not holding hearings online will be in the
minority.
7. Embrace the rule of law by mandating the most democratically
empowering online services and rights across the whole of
government.
Technology itself is not forcing real institutional democratic change. I
estimate that 90% of the democratic innovations online that really share power
are based on a political tradition or law that existed before the Internet
arrived. If we want all citizens to benefit universally from a more wired
democracy, then now is time to update our legal requirements and fund core
online democracy services.
8. Promote dissemination through access to raw data from
decision-making information systems.
Let’s explode decision-making data, like Congressional information and
rulemaking related content into bits via XML and open standards and make it easy
to re-use public government data from many sources to create views and searches
that provide insight, understanding, and accountability. Think “Web 2.0”
interactivity built on top of government data by those outside of
government.
9. Fund Open Source sharing internationally across
e-government.
Sharing and supporting open source software takes resources – a consortium of
national governments need to step up with collaborative funding. The new and
less cluttered area of e-participation tools are an ideal starting point within
e-government to reduce technology costs and build systems for use by multiple
governments.. Efforts to place modules and customizations out for community use
will be key. Government and its vendors must contribute code back for the wheels
of reciprocal value to start turning.
10. Local up – a strategic approach to building local democracy
online.
To build e-participation momentum, citizens need to experience results they
can see and touch. By investing in transferable local models and tools, more
people will use the Internet as a tool to strength their communities, protect
and enrich their families and neighborhoods, and be heard in a meaningful way.
Every community needs an “online town hall,” E-Democracy.Org calls them Issues Forums, for agenda-setting discussion of public issues. Comparative evaluation of access and participation related online service and content indicators will introduce
efforts for an online “Democracy Tune-up.” This same tune-up concept should be
applied at the state and federal level as well.
uGov - Governo de todos, para todos em todo lugar... 