/ Town Hall
Monday 20th November 2017
CALVIÀ TOWN HALL EXPOSES THE PARTICIPA CALVIÀ PLATFORM EXPERIENCE AT THE INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF DEMOCRATIC CITIES AND THE CONSUL PROJECT OF PARTICIPATORY PLATFORMS
The Calvià Town Hall, represented by the Deputy Mayor for Citizen Participation and Youth, Fernando Alcaraz, and a technical team from the Citizen Participation Department, participated in the first international conference on CONSUL (free software for citizen participation) and the international meeting of Democratic Cities held in Madrid. Alcaraz was commissioned to present the experience of Calvià Town Hall through the PARTICIPA CALVIÀ platform and the future challenges that CONSUL poses to improve the democratic participation of citizens in the decision-making locally.
Representatives from 60 Spanish cities from around the world participated in the meeting by sharing issues about participatory democracy, technology and open and free software to encourage citizen participation. The Governance Lab director, Beth Noveck (USA), who was the director of Barack Obama's Open Government project, gave the inaugural conference of ConsulCon, highlighting the achievements and challenges regarding the implementation of this type of platforms, which in Calvià Town Hall has meant involving the public in decisions as important as the execution of part of the municipal budget in proposals that start from the own citizenship. This technology has made possible to take advantage of the knowledge and proposals of the residents of Calvià to propose the resolution of important issues felt as a priority by the citizens themselves.
Speakers from the likes of Birgitta Jónsdóttir (International Modern Media Institute, Iceland), or Richard Barbrook (University of Westminster, United Kingdom) and participants from cities using Consul participated in this international conference.
The mayoresses of Madrid and Barcelona, Manuela Carmena and Ada Colau, opened the international conference held on Saturday at the Teatro Español with a colloquium titled Why is participation essential for democratic cities?
