Norway will show ways how to communicate with the public

The project "Involvement of the public in the development of the municipality" aims to improve communication between citizens and cities. An important partner of the project is the Norwegian city of Fredrikstad, which will be visited by a total of 24 project participants in the second week of September in order to learn about examples of good practice there.

"In accordance with the usual practice that the members of the project team acquired in other projects, a program consisting of meetings with representatives of organizations and institutions in the partner city who are actors of civic participation will be prepared in cooperation with the staff of the Norwegian partner. Various projects using communication with citizens will be presented. Participants will take notes from the trip in the form of reports containing insights and interesting connections that caught their attention during the study trip. The accumulated experience and information will be further discussed at educational workshops, which are also one of the activities of the project, with the aim of finding a solution on how best to transfer the experience of the Norwegian partner to the Czech environment. Reports from the study trip will also be used in the presentation at the final conference," project manager Eva Matulová described the course of the study trip and its importance.

The main reason for developing the project on this topic and its implementation was the effort of the leadership of individual cities and municipalities to involve the public to a greater extent in the events in their place of residence. "Citizens themselves know best what is missing in their surroundings or how, for example, solutions to traffic, parking or other topics could be improved. Last year, we gave citizens the opportunity to participate in the city budget in the form of the 'MOVE the city' event. People actively participated and proposed several investments. Nevertheless, we would like their need to be involved to move to other areas of the city's development, which are more conceptual and look for long-term solutions. I believe that applying what already works elsewhere and is well received is the right choice," says the mayor of Otrokovice, Hana Večerková.

 

 

Implementation date 1/4/2022 – 30/4/2024

Budget: CZK 4,869,846

 

The project is financed from the Funds of the European Economic Area as part of the Good Governance of Public Affairs Program.

Project registration number: GG-MGS1-003

The city of Otrokovice has the role of applicant and main implementer in the project, the project partners are the Norwegian Fredrikstad, as well as the municipalities and cities of Halenkovice, Jeseník, Kopřivnice, Kurovice, Kutná Hora, Nová Dědina, Říčany, Turnov, Uherský Brod, Valašské Meziříčí, Žlutava and the Ivančicko microregion , bringing together fourteen other municipalities of the South Moravian region.