Association participation 3.0

The Associations’ Participation 3.0 project builds on the Associations’ Participation 2.0 project, which was completed in June 2015. The aim of the project is to make the work of recognized environmental and nature conservation associations easier and more efficient when it comes to exercising their participation rights. This will be achieved by further developing the online platform www.umwelt-beteiligung.de, which was developed in the previous project and already supports environmental associations in Berlin and Brandenburg in their participation work and makes it more transparent and accessible for citizens, and transferring it to another federal state. The aim is to increase cooperation between nature conservation associations in three federal states and thus pool scarce resources for participation work. In addition to technical improvements to the functions of the online platform, a backup system is to be developed to ensure more secure operation of the platform and prevent data loss in the event of technical faults. In addition, the platform is to be expanded to include a content component by creating an online course on association participation and the drafting of nature conservation statements. The aim is to make working with the platform more attractive for the associations and to attract new people to work in the field of association participation. Finally, the platform is also to be made better known in other federal states, which should provide an impetus to introduce the platform in all 16 federal states in the future in order to improve the quality of association participation throughout Germany in the long term. The existing platform is to be expanded to include a content component through the creation of an online course. This should increase the attractiveness of working with the platform for the associations. In addition, the platform should help to attract new people to work in the field of association participation. Finally, the aim is to provide an impetus for introducing the platform in all 16 federal states in the future in order to improve the quality of association participation throughout Germany in the long term. The expanded range of services is intended to attract additional people to take part in the associations’ opinion-forming activities and provide them with targeted training through the online course in order to support the work of the associations. Younger, internet-savvy members in particular are to be encouraged to participate in opinion practice. In addition to the simpler and, for the younger generation, “common form” of Internet-based communication, the online course is intended to facilitate access to the practice of opinion work. Corresponding offers in this area are becoming increasingly extensive due to the ever more complicated legal situation, which discourages people who are unfamiliar with the subject matter. An innovative form of simple knowledge transfer is intended to remedy this situation and provide both knowledge and incentives for the processing of opinions. In addition, the online course on participation rights is intended to enable representatives of associations already involved in commenting to expand their knowledge in this area.

In contrast to existing analog guidelines on association participation, such an online course has the advantage of being regularly updated and easier to adapt to any changes in the legal situation. In addition, it can always be accessed directly from the platform, which highlights the platform even more than before as a central instrument for association participation at state level. The aim is to make work easier for the associations and association mergers by providing association representatives with planning documents more quickly and comprehensively, enabling them to write joint statements, recruiting new volunteers to help with the statement process, including the integration of citizen knowledge and new specialist knowledge, providing specialist training for association employees and volunteers and comprehensively digitizing all processes relating to association participation.