Video: Open Policy-making at Democracy Day 2017 – Róbert Bjarnason
Open Policy-making: A new era for citizen engagement in NI
The Northern Ireland Executive committed in November 2016 to pilot an open-policy making process as part of their participation in the Open Government Partnership.
As part of Democracy Day at the MAC, a session hosted by the NI Open Government Network explored what open policy making is and what it could look like in Northern Ireland through the lens of international case studies and experiences in other parts of the UK.
Contributors included:
• Róbert Bjarnason from the Iceland Citizens Foundation
• Hille Hinsberg from the Praxis Centre Estonia
• Tim Hughes from London-based public participation specialists Involve
Róbert Bjarnason – Iceland Citizens Foundation
Róbert is the CEO of the Citizens Foundation in Iceland.
The Citizens Foundation mission is to bring people together to debate and prioritize innovative ideas to improve their communities. They believe that without participation there is no democracy. And their main goal is to help citizens get their voices heard and to encourage citizen participation in governance.
Their ideas about new ways to connect people to participate in democracy, politics and civic life were born after Iceland’s economic and trust collapse in 2008.
Since then they’ve developed open source tools and methods to promote online, democratic debate and to increase citizens’ participation in Iceland and worldwide.