Partnership for the development of Smart Governance in Cojocna commune

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Partnership for the development of Smart Governance in Cojocna commune is the project that aims to develop a smart public administration in Cojocna commune. To implement welfare and development projects, communes need an efficient public administration, i.e. Smart Governance, which represents one of the 6 verticals promoted and recommended by the European Commission as the basis of a Smart Village. This is why we designed a project in which local authorities and NGO representatives from Cojocna commune will be familiarized with smart concepts, will participate in study visits to Ciugud, the promoter of the Smart Village concept in Romania (officially used as a case study by the Romanian Government), will create a fundraising strategy for smart initiatives in the commune and will promote at least one smart initiative by September 2023.

The project’s purpose is to promote smart development at the level of the Cojocna community by: creating a Local Development Fund, developing a mechanism for involving non-governmental organizations and citizens in the community’s life and decision-making processes (active citizenship) and identifying smart initiatives for the development of Smart Governance  in Cojocna.

We aim to achieve the project’s goal by:

1. Developing the capacity of the Civitas Foundation for Civil Society Cluj and the local authorities to get involved in promoting the development of Cojocna as a smart community by involving 60 people (employees and volunteers of Civitas Foundation for Civil Society, employees of the Cojocna Town Hall and employees of NGOs operating in Cojocna) in knowledge enhancement activities.
2. Developing a mechanism for the involvement and consultation of non-governmental organizations and citizens of the Cojocna community regarding local development initiatives with the aim of replicating this model after the completion of the project.
3. Creating of a Local Development Fund to support smart initiatives in Cojocna.

The project’s activities are:

• The project experts will document the smart community concept and a training session on smart concepts will be organized for 20 people. The training will include examples of smart initiatives implemented by Romanian and other European communities.
• We will organize 2 study visits in order to familiarize the staff of Civitas Foundation and Cojocna Town Hall with the smart community concept, the innovative solutions adopted by other communities, as well as with the positive effects produced by them. The study visits will take place in Ciugud, a commune that was awarded at the 2020 Smart City Industry Awards Gala for implementing smart projects and the national promoter of this concept.
• So that the project can be replicated either within the Cojocna community or at the level of other communities interested in this theme, a policy document will be drawn up, which will include the necessary steps that a rural community must follow in order to become a Smart Village.
• Other local actors will be involved in supporting the creation of the Local Development Fund and smart creative initiatives in the Cojocna commune. As part of this activity, at least 5 NGOs will be informed about the project’s activities, its goal and the expected results.
• A fundraising methodology will be developed to support local initiatives and an awareness campaign will be organized at the level of the Cojocna community through posters, promotion on social media, an announcement on the town hall website, regarding the importance of the active involvement of citizens in the development of their community.
• Three “Community Development Facilitator” trainings will be organized for 60 people – employees and volunteers of the Civitas Foundation for Civil Society, employees of the Cojocna City Hall – management and executive staff, local councilors, mayor, deputy mayor and village delegates, employees and volunteers of the non – governmental organizations operating within the Cojocna commune, including citizens interested in acquiring knowledge about community facilitation.
• Two public consultations will be organized to identify the smart initiatives needed by the Cojocna community, in which local elected officials, representatives of the public administration, non-governmental organizations, people from the community will participate. In total, a minimum of 40 people will participate in this sub-activity. The purpose of the public consultations is to generate at least 3 smart initiative proposals, after which these proposals will go through a voting process, and the most appreciated of them will be selected by the community. A fundraising campaign will be organized for the selected initiative in order to implement it. The collected amount will be transparently communicated to the community, and Cojocna City Hall will double this amount (up to a maximum of 10,000 lei).

Target group

The projetc’s target group includes 60 people: 20 employees and volunteers of the Civitas Foundation for Civil Society, 20 employees of the Cojocna Town Hall (management and executive staff, local councilors, mayor, deputy mayor and village delegates) and 20 employees and volunteers from the non-governmental organizations from the Cojocna community.

The sustainability of the project

The sustainability of the project refers to the following:

• Strengthening the capacity of the Civitas Foundation for Civil Society to promote development at the local level as well as to expand its area of ​​intervention and to multiply the activities with positive impact from this project.
• Increasing the involvement of the citizens of Cojocna in the community and in the decision-making process (active citizenship).
• Increasing the capacity of Cojocna Town Hall to formulate and promote smart development.

Regarding the valorization of the results and their integration into the policies of the partner organizations, we can mention that all the project’s results will be integrated into the policies and strategies of the Civitas Foundation for Civil Society and the Cojocna Town Hall. Based on these policies and strategies, it will be possible to identify new sources of funding and implement projects that will include smart initiatives that improve the lives of citizens in the sense of providing better public services, but not only.

*** “Partnership for the development of Smart Governance in Cojocna commune” SMIS code: MySMIS2014+ 151364/SIPOCA code 913 takes place between July 27, 2022 and September 26, 2023. The project is co-financed by the European Social Fund, through the Operational Programme “Administrative Capacity” 2014-2020 and has a total value of 416,186.58 lei, of which 346,683.43 represents the EU contribution, 61,176.43 represents the contribution from the national budget and 8,323.72 co-financing from the beneficiary.