The city of Cologne has developed a strong eParticipation policy to better involve citizens in local decision making. This concept is part of a larger plan aimed at making Cologne an Internet city. Its goal is to "further develop Cologne as a national and international location for internet technology and infrastructure”, the city said.
Cologne is well-known for having implemented a participatory budget in 2007. As an administrative service, its goal is to support citizen participation in the creation of the annual budget of the city, with the overarching goal of promoting transparency. According to Internationalbudget.org, 96 draft participatory budgets were listed in Germany in 2013.
Citizens can make suggestions by district and comment and vote for other proposals. The idea is to find an adapted and balanced redistribution of the Cologne budget by taking citizens’ needs and requests into account.
Open Discussion and Participation through Community Reporters
Sabine Möwes, responsible for eGovernment and online services strategy in Cologne, said in an email that the eParticipation platform is now accessible as a blank solution to build other participatory platforms that involve citizens. This platform is also used to create online dialogue on several topics, such as urban development, social infrastructure or the design of living quarters.
Speaking at a conference in Munich in October 2014 (Münchner Open Government Tage 2014), Sabine Möwes said that the city of Cologne is using social media to communicate with citizens. Social media is now a way of listening to citizens’ voices.
Illustrating this principle, Cologne is also testing the Community Reporter concept. This is aimed at democratising how citizens express their opinion through others channels such as video, audio or photos. This new approach is aimed at appealing to various citizen groups that are not involved in traditional eParticipation procedures, the city said. Young people may be targeted, for example. Community reporters are trained by a local adult education centre and other partners.
“The community reporters should also be integrated into citizens' participation procedures in the medium-term (e.g. as part of youth participation or the participatory budget)”, Cologne explained.