E-democracy in Finland

The National Coordination and Development Centre of Youth Information and Counselling Services (Oulu, Finland) is reaching out to more and more municipalities in Finland, providing them with tools&knowledge upon how the e-democracy tool www.aloitekanava.fi can be fully used and explored.

www.aloitekanava.fi is an online public debate programme, elaborated by the National Coordination and Development Centre of Youth Information and Counselling Services and Ponsi Interactive with the support from the Ministry of Education in Finland.

Thanks to the online platform, young people can voice their ideas about bettering surroundings in the communities of their region and, should their ideas be approved by the public, land up in concrete projects facilitated by local governments&municipalities.

An initial idea goes through stages of commenting, voting and signing to become an initiative that is then forwarded to local authorities for processing. Rock choir for young people in Jyväskylä, clean beaches in Haukipudas, a skate park in Espoo are only some of the examples of concrete actions resulting from the initiatives.

All actors in the municipality (e.g. local policy-makers, organisations, youth councils) can ask questions via local Initiative Channel. Moderating and maintaining the service is usually one of the tasks of local youth workers or administrative staff.

Forty nine municipalities in Finland have already subscribed to the service and have received the training to maintain it. In addition, at least sixty municipalities will have their own Independent Channel in the near future.

The designing of the service started already in 2006 to fulfil the requirement for ways and means for young people to take part in outlining local youth work and youth policy as stipulated in the Finnish Youth Act (2006). The service is part of the governmental Youth Policy Development Programme in Finland.

For further information, please contact:

Merja-Maaria Oinas | Planning Officer

Mobile +358 44703 8303, merja-maaria.oinas(at)ouka.fi