Open Government Partnership Local Initiative in Banská Bystrica

Project period: January 2022 – ongoing Project team: Dialogue Centre - Michaela Kováčik Huľuková, City of Banská Bystrica / Department of Participation and Innovation in Open Governance - Soňa Kariková Project partners: OGP Local Funding: City of Banská Bystrica

We help local governments and organisations introduce democratic innovations in open and participatory governance – from process design to the tools that let them become a natural part of everyday practice.

We currently carry out these activities with the City of Banská Bystrica in cooperation with its Department of Participation and Innovation in Open Governance. In 2021 the city joined the prestigious OGP Local (Open Government Partnership) programme, committing itself to developing open, participatory and transparent public governance in Banská Bystrica.

Our methodology:

When implementing democratic innovation for open and participatory public governance, we focus on four dimensions of innovation:

• Scaling up – institutionalisation: creating tools, guidelines, methodologies and statutes that anchor open governance.
• Scaling deep – building the capacity and skills needed to apply democratic innovations well and over the long term.
• Scaling out – spreading innovations to other cities and communities, co-organising conferences and forums for sharing experience.
• Scaling in – an emphasis on the quality of democratic innovation processes, including participatory approaches.

The outputs of our joint work with the Department of Participation and Innovation on democratic innovation for open and participatory governance include:

• Open Government Action Plan for Banská Bystrica 2021/2022
• Open Government Action Plan for Banská Bystrica 2024/2026
• Open Government Map for Banská Bystrica 2030
• The Spolupracovňa (“Co-working Room”) tool
• Workshops on working strategically with polarisation