8th May 2017
Written by Peter Osborne The outcome of a consensual ballot on what form of democracy people wanted for Northern Ireland was a clear win for deliberative democracy – or an Assembly Plus. That was at Democracy Day in April as part of the Imagine Festival when the 100 or so participants were asked to cast…
15th February 2017
(via ODI Belfast) Well, it doesn’t seem all that long since we were frantically crowdsourcing live elections data for our ElectionsNI project. In fact, it’s only been ten months, but we’re back to another round of elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly. This time round it’ll be every bit as interesting, perhaps more so as people…
21st December 2016
It’s dry and sunny in Paris, but at the OGP Civil Society Morning there’s a somber mood. The Results of Early OGP Initiatives report launched at the Summit, captured OGP success stories and showed that the participation of civil society can have a significant impact. But the usual optimism of open government reformers has been…
5th December 2016
(via SCVO) The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) in partnership with the Wales Council for Voluntary Organisations (WCVA), Involve, and Northern Ireland Environment Link has been awarded a £500k Big Lottery Fund grant to support more people to take part in the decisions that will shape their future. The UK partners will work together…
25th November 2016
(via the Department of Finance) Speaking today at an event to mark the first year of the OpenDataNI portal the Finance Minister announced that the Executive has agreed to a range of open government commitments to strengthen transparency and accountability across Executive departments. Máirtín Ó Muilleoir said: “I recognise the achievements to date in progressing…
20th September 2016
Written by Kyle Parks, Member of the NI Open Government Network Steering Committee One year on from the launch of the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and it feels like they’ve been brushed under the global carpet. At the Open University’s roundtable event in Belfast last week it was widely accepted that much still needs…
7th September 2016
Written by David McBurney and Colm Burns On Thursday 23 June this year a referendum was held to decide whether the UK should leave or remain in the European Union. More than 30 million people voted. The Leave Campaign won by the relatively narrow margin of 52% to 48%. The term ‘Brexit’ – that merges the…
15th August 2016
(via The Democratic Society) The Democratic Society were invited by the Open Government Network NI to speak at the Festival of Economics in Northern Ireland, on the topic of participatory budgeting. The conference was framed around Big Ideas looking at innovative, challenging and disruptive ideas to transform the economy. Our Niamh Webster joined economists, experts…
21st July 2016
17th June 2016