Decidim Barcelona — Digital Participatory Platform

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Efficiency, Sustainability

Decidim Barcelona — Digital Participatory Platform

A digital and democratic platform for citizen participation.

Barcelona City Council

Spain

Local policy

POLICY OBJECTIVE

The Barcelona City Council’s “Decidim Barcelona” is a digital participation platform to build a more democratic city. The digital reference framework aims to create an open, transparent, and collaborative city and give inhabitants a leading role by:

Facilitating participation in public debate.
Reducing the time needed to participate in key debates.
Providing new participation channels to include new social groups in the city’s democratic debate.

CONTEXT

Equal political participation is among the fundamental principles of any democratic system. In 2016 the platform was launched to ensure equal opportunities in uses, functions, and accessibility for all.

The organization managing the platform commits to promote actions that support all who wish to use it.

POLICY DESCRIPTION

A platform for digital participation and democratic platform, “Decidim Barcelona” gives citizens a say in the future of their surroundings. It is a digital space forming part of a participatory process in which to debate, respond and gather proposals. The tool uses open-source software and open code so that it can be reused and improved upon.

KEY ASPECTS

Helps to shape systems of democratic governance in all kinds of organisations.
Ensures information transparency, traceability and integrity by providing security, privacy, and confidentiality to all participants.
Designed entirely with free software and open and collaborative content thanks to the “Metadecidim” community.
Allows citizens to participate in city governance at any time, so they can better organize their personal time and engage in social and political issues.

RESULTS

149,279 users as of 27 September 2022.
With support from the Barcelona City Council, roughly 20 “second and third tier” social organizations use the platform for their own democratic processes.

Policy's Website

Arnau

Monterde Mateo

Director for Democratic Innovation

amonterde@bcn.cat

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