Two Ukrainians, including a Kharkiv student, have represented the country at an innovative global project on democracy.
Victoria Pomazova, from Kharkiv, and Anastasia Klimentenko, of Kherson attended the first meeting of Reinventing Democracy in the Digital Era in Cyprus.
They were among 20 young people from different European countries who gathered to exchange views on the shortcomings of modern democracy and solutions on new, innovative control systems by taking advantage of what the digital era has to offer.
They discussed the issues of 40 hours, employing the Structured Democratic Dialogue (SDD) methodology which embraces true engagement in discussion and harnesses their collective wisdom.
Participants identified corruption and lack of transparency as the most important drawbacks to democracy.
On possible solutions, they embraced e-democracy through the introduction of online voting and appearance of other electronic, online platforms. Exactly such services can provide transparency, easy access to reliable information and establishment of communication between citizens and their governments.
Similar seminars will be organized for young people from other continents to gather more ideas to improve and upgrade the global democratic systems.
The Reinventing Democracy in the Digital Era project is implemented by the Cyprit non-governmental organization Future Worlds Center and funded by the UN’s Democracy Fund.
