Slovenia – Support for Local Initiatives
Focus
It can be argued that there is a lack of democratically formed local initiatives in Slovenia at the present time. This is especially true for initiatives that aim at an improved quality of life at the local level. This is usually sought achieved through implementing locally oriented projects and encouraging participation in local policy-making. Accordingly, the rationales behind this project are that there are insufficient participation in local policy-making, together with lack of knowledge related to the possibilities for local participation.
The project aims to address and simplify both these factors: the possibilities for participation by civil society in a democratic decision-making process, and the cooperation between local initiatives and the appropriate institutions.
The project’s target groups are, in general terms, initiatives and individuals who aim to improve the quality of life at the local level. Special attention is paid to local initiatives in deprived or potentially deprived urban areas. Public sector institutions – from the local to the national level – are also involved in the project, in particular municipal institutions.
The project’s main phases and activities are:
- Analyse relevant literature and case studies (Slovenian and foreign),
- Prepare strategic oriented project plan,
- Establish cooperation with local initiatives,
- Prepare model for setting up, running and sustaining a local initiative, in collaboration with a local initiative in the district of Šiška, Ljubljana, and
- Synthesis, dissemination and final conference.
The project’s main outputs are the network of local initiatives, together with the model for how to set up local initiatives.
Positive spill-over and synergy effects are evident in other areas, including: democratic policy-making, participatory definition of local interests, and social inclusion.
Output
“Supporting local participation: lessons from the PoLoK project”, by Marko Peterlin and Aidan Cerar. Paper presented at the 5th IRDO international conference “Social responsibility and current challenges 2010: Nature and humans”, organized by Institute for the Development of Social Responsibility (IRDO) (www.irdo.si), Maribor, Slovenia, 11-12 March 2010. [access]