The open election among neighbors in the Participatory Budget process of the municipality of Yaiza has decided the execution of the two most voted projects in the popular virtual urn: training in urban gardens and ecological agriculture, and construction of a modular classroom and study room in the town of Yaiza. This was announced by the Councilor for Citizen Participation of Yaiza, Águeda Cedrés, in the colloquium 'Open Government and Participation: present and future of local co-management'. The event was held this Tuesday at the House of Culture and broadcast in streaming with the intervention of representatives of the two public universities of the Canary Islands, the Cabildo of Lanzarote and the southern City Council itself, which is "focused on concrete actions to promote, attend and ensure that the citizen contributions of Yaiza materialize through participatory tools allocating, as is the case, 120,000 euros of municipal funds".
“We started a little over two years ago the informative and formative path with associations, groups and citizens in general, with technical advice and listening and learning from experiences of participatory budgets of other Canary municipalities, to then publish the bases of the call for proposals and end with the popular election”, says the mayor of Yaiza, Óscar Noda.
Of thirty-two proposals, nine were selected, resulting in the election of the two reference proposals. Agueda Cedrés explains that "the technical team made the selection of the proposals that went to vote considering aspects that are of municipal competence, however, we value and study all the proposals either to transfer them to other competent administrations in the matter, be it Health or Education, or to feed our bank of projects, that is, in one way or another all the proposals are valid and we thank without exception each of the citizen contributions".
The urban gardens proposal "demands the planning of days in towns of the municipality to impart training talks on ecological agriculture, recycling, water saving, compost manufacturing and information on our soils in order to promote the creation of urban gardens that serve as self-supply of food", they point out from the City Council.
On the other hand, the modular room proposal "pursues a comfortable space of multipurpose utility for the study and / or work located in the town of Yaiza with the aim of promoting interest in the study and personal and professional preparation, also encouraging social interaction as a meeting point and meetings".
Local co-management
Citizen participation is "a dynamic process where learning is never too much". Within the debate space 'Opinions of the Moment' moderated by the journalist Alex Salebe, the City Council invited Juan Manuel Plasencia, manager of the University of La Laguna and responsible for Participatory Budgets of said university community, Arminda Álamo, academic director of the University Expert title in Governance and Citizen Participation of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and Jorge Peñas, Minister of Open Government of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, acting as hostess the councilor Águeda Cedrés.
From the conclusions it follows the "need to encourage more participatory democracy through all possible and regulated ways to not limit citizen participation to the election of public representatives every four years".
In this sense, the speakers focused their attention "on the true political will of mayors and councilors", in the case of city councils, to "encourage and launch with decision and budget initiatives to integrate citizens into local co-management as evidenced by Yaiza". The universities value "positively" the participatory action of Yaiza and the Cabildo maintains that "it is the example to follow in Lanzarote".
Another point of debate was to expand the radius of action of citizen participation to other social agents such as professional associations of different areas of knowledge, architects, engineers or others, and entities such as chambers of commerce. Participatory processes are now very focused on associations and groups with social missions, very necessary, of course, but current demands and the environment of global uncertainty require opening the spectrum of joint action.
Technology is and will continue to be a great ally of citizen participation because they summarize processes and facilitate remote interaction. Yaiza, for example, carried out its popular vote exposing the projects and offering a virtual platform to decide, but despite the digital transformation it is urgent to maintain and create new spaces for face-to-face coexistence so that all actors interact favoring cohesion and consideration of the execution of projects of common benefit.
"Training is also essential. It is no coincidence that the University of Las Palmas has a title of citizen participation attended by people from public and private entities, precisely those that give life to participatory processes. Administrations must implement participatory processes that help to pay more attention to citizen concerns, offer well-being and exercise greater control over institutions", conclude from the City Council of Yaiza.
