Please meet Darko and Boris Brkan from Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are currently developing Freedom of Information website in their homeland. They are also working closely with Valon Brestovci from Kosovo and with Seb Bacon.

I have talked to both of them about their current activities. Their project is just kicking off now and they are looking at finalizing the exact plan of activities for the upcoming weeks with Tony Bowden. They hope for the green light soon so they can establish the team of developers and to start the research on institutions in Bosnia, making a database of all required contacts.

The legal part was investigated already so soon they should have a detailed description of how a requests looks like in Bosnia and Herzegovina and how to adapt to do it on-line.

They are also in close contact with Transparency International in Bosnia – organisation they consider the most experienced in the country on the topics related to their project. The local Transparency International was mentioned as their partner in the proposal, so now they are discussing the details of suggested co-operation – basically who is going to do what.

Stay tuned for more information from their region!

What problem are you solving?:

Level of public participation in governmental decision-making in B&H is extremely low. In this way, adopted public policy rarely responds to the needs and interests of common citizens and civil society. Concurrently, adopted policies rarely reflect the real situation on the terrain, thus their implementation is ineffective, obsolete and oftentimes even impossible.

Although greater number of governmental institutions in B&H has established public participation mechanisms, these attempts have not been effective as information on public participation opportunities is highly dispersed and non-visible. Moreover, as the civil society consists of diverse agents, it is very difficult for governmental institutions to direct their call for public participation to all relevant NGOs across the country. Finally, NGOs themselves know little about these instruments and ways to use them and influence public policy.

Describe your idea:

Our website will collect and publish:
1.calls for public participation – PP (public consultations, reporting, research, call for provision of services, budget reviews, etc) from all B&H institutions and levels of government
2.public policy materials in the process of creation and adoption (law and budget proposals, sector strategies, etc)
3.NGOs’ public policy initiatives and recommendations.
The website and a newsletter will be customized according to visitor’s interests and location. Each material will be connected to existing public policy framework (laws, sector strategies, other relevant websites, etc) and visitors will be able to place comments for each material.
The website will also incorporate informative materials (already developed by various organizations):
1.existing PP instruments and procedures on all levels of government;
2. overview of good PP practices;
3. recommendations for PP practices for NGOs and governmental institutions.

What country will this operate in?: Bosnia-Herzegovina

Who are you?:

Association for Democratic Initiatives (ADI) is a non-governmental organization working on political and economic development in B&H by fostering participatory democracy practices and instigating partnerships between the civil society, governmental institutions and the private sector. ADI’s efforts are especially directed towards building institutional capacities of civil society organizations and promotion of their role in the society.

I work for ADI as Research Analyst and Project Coordinator on two projects, and will also work as Project Coordinator for this project in case it’s supported. Prior to my engagement in ADI, I worked as researcher in public policy field (government and international organizations) for several years. I holds a BA degree in Political Sciences and MA degree in Globalization Studies. I have great interest in direct democracy and e-participation.

What problem are you solving?:

By definition e democracy means utilization of the Internet to enhance democratic processes, where the enhancement comes in the form of making the processes more accessible and public participation more direct so as to enable broader influence in public policy outcomes.
With creation of the regional multilingual e democracy platform, we will encourage thinking about Internet as a democratic medium, increase effective participation, voting equality at decision stage, enlighten understanding, enable citizen’s control of the agenda, and increase inclusiveness.
Regional approach will also address the lack of available information about legislations in SEE, lack of civic participation in comparative analysis, lack of adaptation of regional legislatives and lack of involvement of citizens and CSO’s in the processes of policy making and decision taking.

Describe your idea:

Basic concept of the idea of regional e democracy platform is to create public space within the existing community and democracy. Our plan is to involve ICT policy and Advocacy organizations which are already our partners in the region, together with their collaborators from SEE in joint action in order to develop and maintain the regional multilingual and interactive e democracy portal within a network of organizations, promote it and make it effective and useful.
We want to create a multilingual information portal which will include set of multimedia tools that support policy advocacy around ICT’s and regional advocacy and policy making processes. Portal and its components will increase the use and relevance of information resources about elections, governance, the media, and public affairs to help address public challenges and promote active citizenship.
Platform network will include organizations form Croatia, B&H, Serbia, Kosovo, Montengro, Macedonia and Albania

What country will this operate in?: Bosnia-Herzegovina

Who are you?:

I am part of owpsee team as Networking and regional cooperation manager.
Oneworld – platform for south east europe (owpsee) is a civil society network in a virtual on line space. We are the multi language and multimedia platform for civil society organizations in the SEE. Our portal www.oneworldsee.org and all our newer supported platforms use information to enable civil society collaboration and mutual learning in the region. We are also a community and network for/of civil society itself with over 80 partner organizations in SEE
Owpsee channel all activities, programs and initiatives according to two main working areas:
1.Information and knowledge
2.Networking and regional cooperation:
Strongly convinced that world is not neutral and that the means need to be coherent/consistent with the goals, we have chosen to pass all our initiative, programs, events trough the filter of:
* Openess in the information and communication technology
* gender sensitized approach

What problem are you solving?:

The elections in October 2010 in BiH will be a crucial point for both the political system and society in general in BiH, as well as civil society and its work.
Elections in the past have been full of broken promises, non-transparent pre-election campaigns, misuse of citizens’ trust and generally low turn-outs.
However, with the trust of the citizens being so low and the dissatisfaction with the current government being also critical (only some 15% trust the current government), together with the increase of internet usage and penetration (35% penetration – over 1.5 million people using internet), we find that internet could be the media that would be the focus point of all the people looking for total, transparent and comprehensive information about the elections in BiH.

Describe your idea:

We want to develop an internet platform that would consist of several things in order to create a set of tools that would guarantee that all interested can receive all comprehensive, total, transparent, up-to-date and accurate information about the elections. We would use following tools:
1. Internet web portal(www.razglasaj.ba) – Internet web portal would be the main „spot“ for the internet campaign. The site would have information on the elections regarding all candidates from all election units from BiH, constant news on elections, columns by citizens, interactive parts for campaigning and GOTV campaign volunteers, multimedia and much more.
2. Glasometar – Votemeter – computer application for testing the issue-oriented voter preferences and informing the public of the programs of political parties
3. Campaign on other portals, social networking sites, you-tube, blogs and other.

What country will this operate in?: Bosnia-Herzegovina

Who are you?:

This would be run by a network of several organizations coordinated by CA Why not and Citiyens’ movement Dosta! from BiH cities.

The organization works in BiH and has partners in most of the BiH local communities. We work with a staff of five (5) and have additional 15 external cooperators and over 200 volunteers that support our work.
We have three programs:
I.Citizens’ activism and government accountability
II.Regional demilitarization and creation of peaceful and safe societies
III.Independent culture support

We have implemented over 20 different campaigns and/or projects and we exist since 2001.

What problem are you solving?:

The idea or the concept of direct democracy, or, for that matter, the participation of citizens in any decision making processes, is a new thing in Bosnia and Herzegovina and is something that the citizens are just not aware of, nor they have a feeling that they could participate and change anything.
This idea would address the problem of lack of involvement of citizens directly in the decision making processes and the problem of lack of tools for direct democracy in the legislative system in BiH. This problem would be mainly implemented through the ICT technologies, more specifically through internet, in order to emphasize its out-reach and potential, as well as practical usage of it.
The main problem we encounter when speaking about this is general inaccessibility of the government and decision makers in general to civil society, but also to citizens and public in general, in the process of making decisions, passing legislation, creating strategies or any similar issues.

Describe your idea:

With this idea we want to introduce a set of tools that would assist citizens in their direct approach to the decision making processes:

1. Otvoreniparlament.ba (OpenParliament) – a web site that would be a direct information and connection point of parliaments and governments in BiH and citizens and other civic initiatives:
a. Tracking all legislation proposed and passed
b.Tracking the work, commenting and vote record
c.Profiles, blogs and chats of members of parliaments
d.Different stats and similar ideas
f.Discussions on the budget

2. Direktnademokratija.ba (direct democracy) – a site that would explain all about direct democracy with the online campaign on it.

3. E-demokratija.ba (e-democracy) – a web site that would be intended to be a simulation of direct democracy where people would be able to give ideas, suggest legislation, vote for legislation and similar

What country will this operate in?: Bosnia-Herzegovina

Who are you?:

I’m a president of an Civic Association “Why not” from BiH and activist of Citizens’ Movement “Dosta!” (Enough!) from BiH.
The mission of our organization is to create a safe, healthy, active, effective and more responsible civilian society in BiH together with other civil society actors, institutions and individuals.
The organization works in BiH and has partners in most of the BiH local communities. We work with a staff of five (5) and have additional 15 external cooperators and over 200 volunteers that support our work.
We have three programs:
I.Citizens’ activism and government accountability
II.Regional demilitarization and creation of peaceful and safe societies
III.Independent culture support

We have implemented over 20 different campaigns and/or projects and we exist since 2001.

What problem are you solving?:

We live in a country in which many basic values have broken down: cooperation in the public sphere is weak, the value of education is undercut by purchased diplomas, the mass media is full of stories of using political and other positions for personal gain, doctors and other healthcare professionals expect under the table payments in order to provide quality care.  Average citizens believe that they have no choice but to participate in these small and large corruptions which are a factor of everyday life.  

Describe your idea:

We know that there are different stories which also exist, like professors who ripped up envelopes full of cash which were offered for a good grade.  We believe that the internet offers a unique platform for collecting and propogating these stories.  We aim to affect peoples’ behavior by showing that moral behavior, based on common values, is possible because their neighbors are already living this way.  We hope to gather these stories from far and wide – and to use these positive examples as a motivator.  Concretely we envision several stages:
1) Create website which will allow people to register and submit new stories, as well as rating favorite stories and indicating ones that have been verified.
2) Use initial stories to advertise the idea using both “new” media (facebook, existing email networks) and “old” media – radio and print
3) Once we have a rich fund of stories, begin offering awards for some of these outstanding individuals as a way of strengthening them.

What country will this operate in?: Bosnia-Herzegovina

Who are you?:

This idea is a collaboration of two faith-based organizations, one Christian and one Muslim, one international and one local.  Our focus is peacebuilding projects.  The two principal initiators bring both technical (computer, internet, development), project management, and public relations experience.