An international webinar on youth engagement in
e-governance was held on 30.10.2024
The International Webinar: ” The Future of Democracy: Youth Engagement in a Digital World” took place on October 30 and was led by Taltech-Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia). The event was part of the project “EGov4Youth – Empowering Youth through e-Government: bridging engagement and digital governance“, financed under the Erasmus+ KA220-YOU – Cooperation partnerships in youth, and featured speakers from various academic fields, representatives of public administration and experts in “new” technologies. The webinar, as a platform for exchanging experiences and sharing opinions, provided an exceptional opportunity to the participating over 150 young people from the partner countries – Italy, Bulgaria, Norway, Greece, Estonia and Cyprus, representatives of public organizations and youth associations, researchers, etc. to learn more about e-governance.
In recent years, the participation of young people in decision-making processes has become a central theme in international political agendas. The pandemic has further accelerated the digitization of public services, making it even more urgent to develop tools and skills that facilitate young people’s access to participation opportunities. Therefore, the EGov4Youth project aims to promote cooperation between young people and public administrations within the decision-making processes. The idea is to facilitate the participation of young people in public life and to build long-term links between different actors, including civil society, research institutions and the private sector.
During the online webinar, the results of the International research report prepared on the basis of a survey among 150 young people aged 15-30 and 30 representatives of local authorities from the partner countries, conducted in the period June-July 2024, were presented. The research report also includes findings based on an analysis of 24 best practices from partner countries that are in some way related to the participation of young people in e-government. The surveys and interviews conducted by the partners raise different focal points that correspond to different steps in a country’s digital transformation journey. At the beginning of this journey, fostering digital skills and building an attractive portfolio of online services are of great importance. Further along the e-government trajectory, a high degree of user-friendliness and strong cyber security are of increasing importance. What unites all parties is the drive for more transparency, trust-building measures such as showing how a user’s data is being used by the public sector would go a long way in helping citizens trust their government more with digital data. All these findings were analyzed and discussed in detail by the experts and speakers during the webinar.
