Promising opener for dialogue about participation of civil society in local decision making in Belarus

The conference might have been the first public event where representatives of state and municipality attended presentations of legal tools on participating in governance on local level. Thus the speeches, delivered by both Belarusian and international CSO players, played the initial role for starting of dialogue about participatory budgets, local referenda and petitions at the open public forum.

“It is not just a conference as we know it,” said Uladzimir Kavalkin, Belarusian expert on good governance and head of Petitions.by org. “The attendance of state and town representatives on such an open platform brought us a chance to continue the advocacy of participatory budgets and connected mechanisms of civic participation. The ideas are seeded.”

Conference was held by Petitions.by with the support of Watchdog Polska, TI Hungary, TI Czech Republic and SGI Slovak Republic. It was supported by Visegrad Fund and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Netherlands via Reinforcing Direct Democracy in Belarus project. Thanks.

Speeches:

Panel 1
Uladzimir Kavalkin: Comparation of participatory tools for decision making in Visegrad countries and Belarus
Martin Kollárik-Ctibor Koštál: Participatory tools for decision making in Slovak municipalities
Gyula Mucsi: Concrete examples of participatory tools for decision making in Hungary
Dzianis Kobrusieŭ: Citizens’ participation: good and bad practice

Panel 2
Katarzyna Batko-Toluc: Activities of local initiatives participating in decision making on public issues in Poland
Ondřej Cakl: Local referenda in the Czech Republic (study of Adama and Aneta Jareš)
Miraslaŭ Kobasa: Forms of citizens’ participation in the implementation of local self-government  


Petitions.by organized the international conference “Forms of collaboration among state authorities and civil society on solution of local issues” which was unique for several reasons. We were proud to be there and support it. (Minsk 8.5.2018)

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