Open Government

The German federal government has launched an online platform where anyone can submit ideas for open data. After four weeks (later this month), the online phase will be closed and all the ideas will be collected.

Last week, the Polish City of Gdansk launched a public register of petitions addressed to the mayor. Petitioners can demand a change in the law, a decision or another action in the interest of the petitioner, the community, or the common good. Of course, these requests should fall within the scope of the tasks and competences of the recipient of the petition.

Funky Citizens, a Romanian civil initiative to build research-based, data-driven online advocacy tools, is inviting its followers to participate in analysing the municipal budget of Cluj-Napoca. This move was triggered after several errors were found in the 2015 draft budget. According to Funky Citizens, the municipal government reacted openly and quickly when confronted with these errors.

The people from the ePolicy project have launched a beta version of their platform. This will support policy-makers in their decision-making throughout the whole policy-making lifecycle. The project focuses on regional planning and promotes the assessment of economic, social and environmental impacts during the policy-making process at both the global and individual levels.