Strasbourg, 20 March 2012 CDLR(2012)11
Item 8 of the agenda
EUROPEAN COMMITTEE ON LOCAL AND REGIONAL DEMOCRACY
(CDLR)
INTERGOVERNMENTAL WORK ON DEMOCRATIC
LOCAL GOVERNANCE - COMMUNICATIONS
For action
Secretariat Memorandum
prepared by the
Directorate of Democratic Governance, Culture and Diversity
Democracy, Institution-Building and Governance Department
 |
Introduction
Communication has become an important part of the work of the CDLR. The impetus for its importance derives from Minister Kiviniemi’s report on “How to enhance the work of the Council of Europe in the field of local and regional democracy?” and the declaration by European Ministers responsible for Local and Regional Government, meeting in Utrecht on 16 and 17 November 2009 for the 16th Session of their Conference, that “the work of the Council of Europe in the field of local and regional democracy deserves to be better known and an active communication policy should be developed in order to maximize its impact on member States and civil society” (Utrecht Declaration, II.A, 5.).
Using the “To do list” as a reference (Appendix I to document CDLR(2010)6), please see below (items 2. – 6.) for the “to do list” items which have been implemented to date or are currently being implemented.
Please use the latter document as a reference since its appendices are not reproduced here.
1. Highlights of communication activities 2011-2012
The highlights below are for events and activities organised since the last CDLR meeting in September 2011. For the highlights from April 2011 to September 2011, please refer to document CDLR(2011)35.
17th session of the Ministerial Conference, Kyiv, Ukraine, 3-4 November
[TO DO LIST ITEM: 6, DEADLINE: completed]
With the change in the emphases of the Council of Europe internet homepage, news on the Ministerial Conference was unfortunately kept to a minimum, and consisted of a small news under the “Week in brief” section. This article largely drew on an article drawn up by the CDLR Secretariat for the local website. It was sent out to the Directorate of Communication’s contacts, the CDLR Communication Correspondents’ Network and the CDLR external contact list. In line with the Council of Europe’s new communication policy, no press coverage was organised to take place on site by the Council of Europe.
- The Conference on Twitter (for more on Twitter, see the item below)
The communication exercise on Twitter proved to be very successful. Our first tweet on the conference was retweeted within the first half hour of it being sent out. Many of the other tweets were retweeted on several occasions. Our thanks go to Jean-Philippe Bozouls, Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Local Authorities of the Congress who was particularly helpful in this regard. The Kyiv Declaration, tweeted and retweeted the day of its publication, particularly generated interest.
CDLR on Twitter
[TO DO LIST ITEM: 6; DEADLINE: ongoing]
A CDLR twitter account (@coe_cdlr) was set up, following the approval of the CDLR to the setting up of the CDLR twitter account at its 48th meeting in September 2011.
The @coe_cdlr twitter account has, at the time of writing, 189 followers. These comprise a mixture of NGOs specialising in local democracy (and in particular our partners CEMR and the Assembly of European Regions), local authorities from around Europe, CEOs of local authorities, academics specialising in local democracy, mayors, local government internet newspapers, local newspapers, as well as the Secretary General of the Council of Europe. To increase the impact of this communication method, it would be helpful if CDLR members could send the Secretariat twitter addresses for bodies dealing in local democracy in their country. This would enable the audience to be enlarged.
Not all tweets are retweeted, but many have been, and notably the tweet that sent out the CDLR report on participatory budgeting, which at last count had been sent to approximately 30 000 people. This report generated interest all round the world, including places such as Fiji and Argentina. The US and Brazil showed the most interest, but obviously a great deal of interest was equally shown by Council of Europe member states. From the statistics which are traceable, it can be seen that the report has been added to 33 facebook accounts and 6 google plus accounts.
One of our more high profile retweets was by the person who ran Nicholas Sarkozy’s internet presidential campaign – Arnaud Dassier – so Twitter is definitely enabling us to reach out to a wide variety of actors.
Once upon a time, local democracy – video promoting decentralisation
[TO DO LIST ITEM: 16, DEADLINE: completed]
A video to promote the importance of local democracy to the general public was produced in 3 languages (Ukrainian, English and French) as part of the Programme to reinforce local government in Ukraine. The video will be officially launched at the spring session of the Congress. It will also be shown during the CDLR meeting. The English version of the video (on Youtube) has already had 1343 viewings since it was added in early February, the Ukrainian version 1081 viewings and the French version, 333 viewings. In view of the short time it has been on youtube, these are excellent viewing figures for a Council of Europe video.
The Directorate of Communication will help with its translation into other member states’ languages, as well as producing a TV spot to be sold around Europe. This work is in progress.
Best Practice Programme, Regeneration of Coastal Towns
[TO DO LIST ITEM: 16, DEADLINE: 1 April]
This was promoted jointly by the Congress and the CDLR Secretariat, through the website, Twitter, Communication Correspondents Network, and contact lists. There are 48 participants so far, including from outside Europe (coastal municipalities in Israel).
3. Future communication projects
Human Rights
[TO DO LIST ITEM: 6; DEADLINE: ongoing]
It was agreed at the 46th CDLR meeting to include a human rights/human dimension focus in the activities on communication (see item 1 above). It was further agreed to revisit this point following the Discussions in the CDLR and at the Ministerial Conference in Kyiv, Ukraine in November, on human rights at local level (see also item 5.2 of the agenda of this CDLR meeting).
Since the Conference, contact has been established with the Unit managing the “Building a Europe for and with Children” project, DGI Human Rights and Rule of Law, initially with regard to disseminating the recent video produced by the Centre of Expertise for Local Government Reform (see below). It was realised that the CDLR could contribute to their work programme by its participation in the (broadly defined) monitoring mechanism of the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (the Lanzarote Convention) and its involvement in the Council of Europe "One in Five" campaign – a programme to stop sexual violence against children. More indepth information on this activity will be presented to the CDLR at the meeting (see also document CDLR(2012)10).
The CDLR participation in this activity, in addition to being very beneficial to children’s Human Rights in Europe, would be good for the CDLR from an internal communication point of view, helping to raise the visibility of the CDLR work within the Organisation, and with a high profile activity.
Facebook account for the CDLR
[TO DO LIST ITEM: 6; DEADLINE: in progress]
The Secretariat will look at the possibility of setting up a facebook account for the CDLR, for informal exchanges on local democracy between its members.
The possibility for another facebook account is currently being discussed by the joint programme “Strengthening local self-government in Serbia”.
4. Website
[TO DO LIST ITEM: 11; DEADLINE: ongoing]
The Local and Regional Democracy website remains the main communication tool for the CDLR. The website for the Strategy for Innovation and Good Governance was revamped earlier in 2011, and towards the end of 2011 the pages for the Centre of Expertise for Local Government Reform were updated with information taken from the most recent Activity Report. The news page has been updated regularly, and some of the stories have been followed up by external bodies and the Council of Europe’s Directorate of Communication for twitter and podcasts.
In 2012, changes will be made to the website to bring it in line with structural changes arising from the recent reform of the Council of Europe.
5. Publications of the CDLR
[TO DO LIST ITEM: 7; DEADLINE: ongoing]
In 2011, the following reports were published: Estonia Structure and Operation report, a reprint of the first Toolkit on Capacity Building for Local Government (first published in 2005) and the publication of Toolkit IV on Performance Management and Strategic Municipal Planning, the Analytical tool for assessing the autonomy of first-tier local authorities was published in Spring 2011.
Publications in 2012 will include Crossborder Co-operation in Europe: a comprehensive overview, a reprint of Toolkit III: Benchmarking for public ethics and Local Government in Critical Times: Policies for Crisis, Recovery and a Sustainable Future.
6. Communication Network
[TO DO LIST ITEM: 6; DEADLINE: ongoing]
The network now comprises the following member states: Azerbaijan, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Turkey. While this membership ensures a fair coverage, further nominations from member States currently not represented would be welcome.
The network has been contacted in relation to all major events. A recent press release sent to the Network on the Best Practice Programme 2012 - Regeneration of Coastal Towns, being organised jointly by the Centre of Expertise for Local Government and the Congress for Local and Regional Authorities, has generated participants to the programme, particularly in Malta. Most network members have been active in adding information to their department’s websites.
Action required
CDLR members are invited:
1. to take note of the information provided in the present document;
2. to nominate a correspondent to the Communication Correspondents’ Network, where this has not already been done;
3. to send the Secretariat member states’ Twitter addresses connected to local and regional democracy, in view of the success of the coe_cdlr twitter account;
4. to continue actively contributing to the new communication policy in order to enhance the visibility of the Council of Europe’s work on local and regional democracy at national level by:
i) identifying appropriate communication activities for appropriate committees;
ii) identifying appropriate follow-up in member states;
iii) drawing up communication plans by reference to the Communication checklist;
iv) flagging up important activities to make visible in 2012-13.