The Idea of the Statistical Portrait of the Estonian Civil Society and Involvement Infrastructure
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Editor-in-Chief of Riigikogu Toimetised issues 1–3
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Doctoral Candidate of Public Administration, Tallinn University of Technology
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Author of KYPO IT-solution, MAD Innovators OÜ
The starting point are the problems of participation democracy in Estonia and the problems of the implementation of Estonian Civil Society Concept, connected with the involvement of citizens’ associations, and of good involvement practice (2005, 2011), drawn up on the example of OECD involvement report (2001). On the basis of analyses the authors claim that in spite of many efforts, ensuring the quality of statistics on citizens’ associations and involving of stakeholders have not become an accepted part of policy shaping, legislation and public administration (altogether, good governance).
The first part of the article deals with the story and theoretical background system of the KYPO idea, among other things the authors improve the OECD involvement framework, adding the fourth component, namely the preparatory work of a policy initiator – the mapping of stakeholders and preparing involvement plan – to the existing components of informing, consulting and participation. In the second part the quality and participation problems of data gathered from the citizens’ associations of the country are analysed and the possibilities of the KYPO demo version are introduced. The third part focuses on the proposals collected from the target groups during the KYPO project; the proposals concern the functions of several ministries and the parliamentary oversight functions of the Riigikogu as the representative body of citizens.
In spite of the quality problems of national registry data, the demo version of KYPO (www.kypo.ee) is a sufficiently integral and practical e-tool that can be used in performing the tasks of the officials dealing with the involvement of citizens’ associations in legislation at ministries, leaders of citizens’ associations, members of the Riigikogu, journalists, teachers of civil education, etc., when it is necessary: (a) to e-map citizens’ associations as target groups of development plans, laws, public services or projects at the level on the state, counties, cities and rural municipalities (KYPO as online involvement infrastructure); (b) to find quickly in one e-window general data on Estonian civil society and its associations, guardian organisations, studies, financing information, state e-services for associations, etc. (KYPO as the portrait and gate of civil society); (c) to know and observe the civil society development plan of the Government of the Republic (KODAR) 2011–2014 objectives, instruments and statistics reflecting the results (KYPO as reports web).