IT and Authority: “Your power” project considered by State Duma

Representatives of various branches of government are coming up with different initiatives on how to increase transparency of the government. This was announced on July 7, 2011 in the State Duma within the roundtable discussion “Enabling interaction of authorities and society via Information Technologies”. Within the framework of the event the attendees discussed the problems concerning keeping the society up-to-date on the work of authorities via latest technologies, and also elaboration of modern mechanisms of feedback for citizens and the state.

“Your power” project was presented at the roundtable discussion. The gist of the project is to establish interactive communication between deputies and voters. This proves to be especially urgent on the threshold of State Duma elections. Many citizens appear to be not well-informed about the activities of peoples’ elected representatives. In order to shape the feedback mechanism the project will involve informing of the society on activities of current and future deputies, and also collecting of voters’ addresses and their questions on the project’s website.

Developers of the project remind that the subject of authority transparency is on everyone’s lips as the country is struggling with corruption. President Medvedev regularly mentions that information openness of public servants stays high on the list of priorities. Information openness is called to improve the quality of services provided to the population and the anti-corruption effect. In order to improve the control of citizens over the state certain steps have been taken on information openness of authorities. Since 2008 first officials, and then State Duma deputies have started publishing reports on their incomes. This year Vladimir Putin also proposed to declare officials’ expenses. The President has also set a target to establish information society by 2020. The problem of interaction between the authorities and the society was under the spotlight at the recent meeting of the Council of Human Rights and Civil Society presided over by Dmitry Medvedev, which was held in Nalchik.