Budapest, 89 March 2002

1
Budapest, 8-9 March 2002

EXPERIENCE AND THE LESSONS LEARNT FROM The
First Lithuanian Effort in Electronic Community
Consultation for Encouraging Public Comment on

• A LONG-TERM STRATEGY FOR LITHUANIAN ECONOMIC
  DEVELOPMENT IN 2001-2015
• Assoc. Prof. dr. Nerute Kligiene,
• Institute of Mathematics and Informatics
• Vilnius, LITHUANIA, 2002

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THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTERACTIVE PUBLIC
POLICY IN LITHUANIA

• The project was initiated and supported by the
  Open Society Fund-Lithuania
•  
• IT HAS TWOFOLD GOALS
• Ø  To create online consultation example for
  governmental institutions and to gain an
  experience and skill in e-democracy
•  
• Ø To improve and to speed a development of a
  Strategy for Lithuanian Economic Development
• The online consultation complements the
  activities undertaken by the Ministry of Economy
  LR through their official channels

3

MAIN FACTS ABOUT A STRATEGY PROJECT

• The whole strategy has been divided into 14
  specific strategies (such as Economic
  Integration, Environmental Protection,
  Agriculture, Communications and Informatics,
  and other fields)
• This strategy is currently being prepared by
  14 groups of experts
• Coordinated by the Ministry of Economy of
  Lithuania
• It should be ready by the end of March 2000
• A Strategy will become a part of the
  Lithuanian State Development Plan

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THE AIMS OF CONSULTATION

• To involve citizens into solving important
  questions
• To determine the level of knowledge and
  understanding in the community of the
  questions being considered
• To get proposals, remarks to improve a
  Strategy
• To find alternative solutions to urgent
  problems
• A long-term goal is to promote e-democracy and
  develop a core democratic values
• To built trust in the transparency of government
  actions
• To strengthen a connection between citizens and
  decision- making

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TARGET AUDIENCE

• Other experts not included into groups of
  those, creating a Strategy
• Interest groups (NGO, various associations)
• The academic community
• Political parties
• Citizens, people concerned about the future of
  Lithuania

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THE IMPORTANT FEATURES

• Consultation was performed in each of the 14
  specific strategies separately
• Various channels (radio, press, internet,
  leters to persons, organizations, political
  parties) were used for info spread
• Electronic community consultation put into
  practice on a special interactive website
  http//www.svarstome.lt
• The information system created can be easily
  modified to solve other problems

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HOW IT WORKS? - PREPARATORY STEPS

• GENERAL SCHEME
• ltPREPARATORY STEPSgtltCONSULTATIONgtltCONCLUDING
  STEPSgt
• The consultation background, criteria, and code
  of practice on consultation were made available
  to experts
• Experts in each field have prepared a project of
  Specialized Strategy provided with
• A series of questions to stimulate debate
• A background summary of topic considered
• All this, together with a list of experts, was
  launched for public consultation on
  http//www.svarstome.lt

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HOW IT WORKS? CONSULTATION

• The target audience is constantly informed about
  online consultation, Internet users have a unique
  opportunity
• To download any document of a Strategy
• To know who its authors are
• To express opinions about any document
  online/e-mail
• To answer interactively questions posed by
  experts
• To get acquainted with the ideas of other
  participants in this discussion

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HOW IT WORKS? CONCLUDING STEPS

• Experts
• Carefully and open-mindedly analyse responses
• Summarize results of consultation with an
  account of the views expressed and reasons
  for decissions finally taken
• Submit the consultation results and improved
  Strategy for Internet publishing
• TIME TABLE OF CONSULTATION
• First round the end of December 200131
  January 2002
• Second round February 2002 the end of March
  2002
• A Special Workshop in the middle of March
• N.B. EC launched consultation on e-Economy
  from 1 Feb 2002

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(No Transcript)
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THE ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN

• Various channels were used for information
  spread
• Mass media Internet portals (4 times), press (3
  adv.), radio (3 times)
• Personal letters to other experts, MP of LR (207
  letters)
• Letters to organizations NGO, political parties
  (67 letters)
• E-mailed information to persons, organizations
  (648 e-mails)
• Banners the websites of all Lithuanian
  universities (12)
• Links the website of the LP, some LR Gov.
  institutions
• Numerous calls to specialists, other means of
  info spread
• All together the spread of information reaches
  922 units sent expediently

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SOME STATISTICS OF WEBSITE
December 22nd 2001 - January 31st 2002

• THE EFFORTS
• 922 units of information sent plus info in mass
  media
• THE RESULTS
• 6,230 visitors, 210 postings, 157 different
  respondents
• The number of unique visitors 2,617, while
  3,613 visited website more than one time
• The rate of visitors activity was rather low
  only 3 of visitors become respondents
• Not all topics had active discussions and got
  numerous postings
• Many of experts confirm that the postings and
  online consultation were useful to improve
  the Strategy

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ANALYSIS OF THE FIRST ROUND STATISTICAL DATA
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THE LESSONS LEARNT THE WEAKNESSES OF OUR
PROJECT

• Timing of consultation was too short,
  not sufficient time left for improving a Strategy
• Commitment of experts to prepare additional
  materials, to ask public opinion in so short
  time was not sufficient
• A series of questions what have to stimulate
  debate dont proved itself to be effective

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UNEXPECTED SUCCESS

• Citizens took a challenge to express their
  opinions in such area as long-term strategy
  for economic development
• Moderation process was almost unnecessary no
  one posting has to be moved because of
  violation of any rule in the User Agreement

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WHAT SHOULD BE KEPT/CHANGED?
The important things to be kept

• The commitment of the the Governmental
  institutions
• The discussion - open and uncensored, and the
  results of the participation immediately seen
  online
• The advertising campaign should be even more
  intensive

• Changes needed from the start of the next
  consultation
• More time should be planned for a consultation
  and the improving according the proposals
• Experts, people involved need more
  incitement, support and training

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CONCLUSIONS

• Such kind of consultation have to be oriented
  to highly qualified professionals and
  requires a lot of commitment from all
  participating people
• The advertising campaign was more effective
  when focused on personal addressing
• The experts have a big additional load and need
  to be supported and trained in this new area
  in advance
• The community took a challenge to participate
  in online consultation
• The consultation was successful in spite of
  complicated topics of consultation as it
  was A Long-Term Economic Development
  Strategy
• The support of LR Government was necessary and
  leaded to success

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ORGANIZATIONS BEHIND THIS PROJECT

• The project was initiated and supported by the
  Open Society Fund-Lithuania
• A traditional way of creating and discussing
  on Strategy was organized by The Ministry
  of Economy of Lithuania
• Project team is based at the Lithuanian Computer
  Society and specialists from
• The Institute of Mathematics and Informatics
  (IMI)
• The Lithuanian University of Law
• The Institute of Economics, Lithuanian Academy
  of Sciences

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THE CONTACT INFORMATION

The coordinator and the project leader is dr.
Nerute Kligiene (IMI) Address for contacts is
svarstom_at_ktl.mii.lt or N. Kligiene, Institute of
Mathematics and Informatics, A. Gostauto 12,
LT-2600, Vilnius, Lithuania. Phone (370 2)
660386, Fax [phone]
THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION