The Next Big e-Agenda Has Arrived!
This summer, over 500 senior government officials from UK central and local government, international organisations and NGOs (including the United Nations, the European Commission and the Council of Europe) from over 70 countries will join with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in a major new International Symposium to share expertise on the growing convergence between e-Government, Social Inclusion and e-Participation.
To ensure genuine international input from every level of government and all key sectors, the Symposium will take place in both Budapest, Hungary (26-28 July, 2006) and Baltimore, USA (2-4 August, 2006). Budapest will set the stage for discussion and debate around the critical challenges stakeholders face as they struggle to deliver the full potential of e-government. ‘The Budapest meeting presents an ideal opportunity to take the discussion on e-Participation and e-Government forward,’ states the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Baltimore will take the discussion further by exploring new and emerging e-applications in the country that pioneered the art of online campaigning but now faces the challenge of translating these tools into more inclusive governance.
Local e-Government is moving onto the next stage of the e-journey, by focusing attention on e-Participation and how to use technology to effectively engage and empower citizens. Strategies of e-Government have delivered the infrastructure to deliver transactional services. The next step involves utilising technology to enhance and facilitate engagement for citizens in their everyday lives. Local e-Government Minister, Jim Fitzpatrick says: ‘The Symposium meetings will be major events, where policymakers and practitioners from around the world will get together in shaping a new policy agenda.’
The opportunity to use new technology, such as m-Government is being explored in the UK and overseas. The Budapest and Baltimore events afford the opportunity for officials, experts, academics and practitioners to assess the best way forward to benefit everyone.
ODPM participation at the Symposium includes workshops on the status of the UK Digital Challenge and how to promote Social Inclusion via e-Participation. It will also include the international showcasing of new ODPM e-Participation solutions such as the VOICE toolkit, a brand new suite of easy-to-use interactive tools for creating and developing e-communities where citizens, communities and authorities can come can come together online to discuss issues, work in partnership, and share information and ideas. The VOICE toolkit includes e-participation, e-consultation and website publishing tools to support the e-enabling, as well as develop existing e-enabled parish and town councils, the voluntary community sector, neighbourhood groups and other local initiatives.
The United Kingdom is currently ranked number one by the United Nations Global e-Participation Index and recently ranked number one globally in e-Participation in an index prepared by the World Economic Forum to measure an economy’s readiness to effectively use information technology.
With over 70 countries expected to be represented, participation in the forthcoming Symposium provides a timely celebration of the UK’s success in this important field, and opportunity to share good practice and lessons learned globally.
Notes to editors:
The International e-Participation and Local Democracy Symposium: Promoting Social Inclusion via e-Participation is a series of collaborative conferences with a number of key partners and partners.
Key Partners:
- Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy
- Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
- United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs
- The Council of Europe
- National Association of Secretaries of State
Partners:
- De Montfort University
- Association of Electoral Administrators
- Association of Central and Eastern European Election Officials
- The Public Forum Institute
- University of Maryland Baltimore County
- National Association of State Election Directors
- Politech Institute
- America Speaks/Global Voices
- American Association of People with Disabilities
- North Lincolnshire Council
- Swindon Borough Council
- Scope
The International Symposium was announced by the Under Parliamentary Secretary of State for the ODPM, Jim Fitzpatrick M.P. on the 29 March at an event to celebrate the success of the UK Local e-Democracy National Project. The Symposium will be part funded by the Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy and the other key partners in association with 21c Consulting Limited, a professional company.
The same meeting also saw the announcement by the Minister of the creation of a Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy and the introduction of a new product entitled VOICE: empowering citizens and communities. VOICE will be a suite of products aimed at assisting communities to build and manage their own websites with a host of other facilities using the products and learning from all other projects in the Local e-Gov Programme. This is available for immediate roll out on a free basis to all local authorities in England and for sale, on a low cost basis to councils and communities overseas.
The Symposium will be run concurrently with the United Nations meeting of the e-Government and e-Democracy Experts Group Meeting. This meeting will be seeking to define a new conceptual framework for defining and measuring e-Participation across the world.
The International Symposium will be chaired by the new Centre of Excellence president, Andrew Pinder CBE, the former UK e-Envoy.
The Symposium will seek to establish the language and debate for this future policy area of e-Government, including how it can really strengthen and enhance a healthy democratic society. It will also seek to share best practice and learning in line with the Ministerial Declaration made at the EU Conference in Manchester in November 2005.
The United Nations Global e-Government Readiness Report 'from e-Government to e-inclusion' 2005 and 2006 list the United Kingdom as number one in the world for e-Participation.
For more information on these unique events you can now visit our new website at: www.edemocracysymposium.org
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