Picodemocracy – Informing, Consulting and Engaging Citizens Bardhyl Jashari (Metamorphosis, Macedonia)

At today’s third session, Bardhyl Jashari (Metamorphosis, Macedonia), presented Picodemocracy – Informing, Consulting and Engaging Citizens.

In a short introduction, Bardhyl explained the importance of citizen’s participation in democracy, and stressed out that they are working on a model to simplify that participation, called Picodemocracy. He pointed out that there is a small percentage of citizen’s participation in Macedonia, and a key cause of this is a high control of media by the government. On the other hand, reasons for this is that citizens themselves do not know how to participate, do not have time for participation, or do not have enough knowledge and the worst, think that they cannot make any change.

He stressed that the advantage of new technology should be used to simplify citizens’ participation. The content should be presented to citizens in a way that would be easier and more interesting for them. Picodemocracy comes from the Italian word pico, meaning “small”. This model involves citizens as much as they want to participate. Picodemocracy concept enables citizens to gain information on activities of government and to voice their concerns or approval directly towards elected officials. The concept is in the form of application, also accessible in a mobile version. Concept can work at the local and state level.