PROVIDU in Good Governance

In the area of good governance PROVIDUS focuses on relations of an individual with the
state. PROVIDUS believes that good governance cannot be measured only by the overall
economic development of the state. Instead, participation of an individual in the political
process, his/her capability to hold the state accountable and the capacity of the governance to
guarantee fair solutions when a conflict between an individual and the state occurs is the
main measure of success. In the area of good governance PROVIDUS works in several
directions:

Promotion of accountability of the political parties and financial transparency of

electoral campaigns,
Continuous evaluation and improvement of the administrative process quality,
Participation in monitoring of how the public financial resources are spent, i.e. EU
Structural Fund allocation,
Analyses and analytical support to corruption prevention measures, including
openness of information and responsibility of courts.

PROVIDUS continuously follows the public debate in the area of good governance by
providing evaluation and proposals on the issues which are in PROVIDUS area of expertise.
Corruption prevention, openness of information and responsibility of courts
Corruption distorts public activity and represents the opposite of all the values that
PROVIDUS supports in the area of good governance. PROVIDUS continuously analyses the
development of anticorruption policy in Latvia and, especially for this purpose, publishes the
Paper Series on Corruption and Anticorruption Policy Corruption C (http://corruptionc.wikidot.com/). PROVIDUS is also aware that tackling corruption depends not only on the
activities targeting corruption itself but also on the degree of transparency and responsibility
of public institutions. Therefore PROVIDUS analyses the mechanisms ensuring access to
information in the public structures, including law enforcement agencies, as well as aspires to
strengthen responsibility and performance of judiciary officials.
Researchers: Valts Kalnins, Linda Austere, Iveta Kazoka
Citizen participation in decision making
The democracy of 21st century is already inconcievable without active citizenry that takes
part in decision making. New technologies and innovative forms of participation (such as
deliberative councils) have opened unprecedent possibilities to cooperate and share
information. They allow common citizens and elected members of parliament as well as state
officials to work daily hand by hand in order to create a better governance.
Providus started to work on citizen participation in 2005 advocating for greater internal
political party democracy. Nowadays, the objective is more ambitious we believe that every
citizen should be certain that his or her opinion is of value to politicians and officials.
Providus activities in regards to citizen participation can be broadly described as such: 1)
offering state institutions and politicians solutions for opening the state towards increased
citizen participation (changing regulations, practices); 2) consulting and mentoring civic
activists to be more efficient in their efforts to take part in decision making; 3) Providus also

creates its own civic participation platforms (such as an interactive communication tool
between members of parliament and citizens gudrasgalvas.lv) and organizes innovative
deliberative events (such as citizen consultations).
Researchers: Iveta Kazoka, Linda Jakobsone, Linda Curika
Direct communication platform GudrasGalvas.lv
www.GudrasGalvas.lv was launched in September 2010, one month before the general
elections in Latvia. The main purpose of the project was to increase direct communication
between voters and politicians. This was achieved by providing a simple on-line platform
where each candidate could register his/her profile, state their motivation of becoming a
member of parliament and answer questions from the public. After the elections the website
was transformed into a communication platform between the citizens and their newly elected
parliamentary representatives as well as the members of the new Cabinet of Ministers. The
platform was transformed again for the extraordinary elections in 2011 and currently
continues to serve its purpose for the direct communication with the elected representatives.
The platform allows voters to ask direct questions, read MPs' and ministers' blogs, participate
in their questionnaires, monitor what the internet media is saying about each MP and
minister; ask for a visit to the Parliament; to see Parliament debates on-line, etc. A voters
profile enables users to track their own activities on the site, for example, to follow questions
asked and answers received.
Platform co-ordinator: Linda Jakobsone
Administrative procedure
After the Administrative Procedure Law came into force on February 1, 2004 one of the most
important mechanisms regulating relations between the state and the individual began
functioning on an entirely new level. Giving due regard to importance of this novelty, since
the end of 2003 PROVIDUS has started various activities I order to assess quality of
implementation of the new regulations, determine needs of institutions and facilitate a
positive change of administrative practices. Activities include continuous analysis of
decisions made by municipalities and latterly a court practice. Special significance has been
attributed to implementation of the Administrative Procedure Law in Municipalities. Based
on our expertise PROVIDUS has provided necessary consultations and training to the
municipality staff as well as inhabitants focusing on opportunities ensured by the
Administrative Procedure law. PROVIDUS gradually expands the analysis of the decisions
made by the Administrative courts.
Researchers: Agnese Lesinska, Gatis Litvins, Linda Austere
Construction/building law
Construction is a branch of industry, in which suspicion of corruption and cumbersome
bureaucracy can be still felt today. The legal regulations of the process are outdated and do
not conform to the principles of modern administrative and environmental law. To facilitate
the improvement of the existing legislative framework and implementation of good
governance principles, in 2005 PROVIDUS embarked on analysis of decisions on
construction/building permission issues made by the Municipalities and Administrative

courts. PROVIDUS plans to expand its activities by offering both training with special focus
on administrative procedure in construction sector as well as consultations for individuals.
Researcher: Agnese Lesinska, Gatis Litvins
EU Structural funds
After the accession of Latvia to the EU sizeable financial resources started coming into
Latvia from the EU structural funds. PROVIDUS has brought attention to a number of issues
that are connected with the use of structural funds, for instance, the project selection criteria,
publicizing of information about the recipients of funding from the structural funds,
applicants rights to appeal and rise complaints. PROVIDUS holds regular monitoring of how
principles of good governance are applied and recommends improvements in policy
implementation process. PROVIDUS has also organised discussions about the next EU funds
programming period (2007-2013) and organised campaign aiming to increase amount of
allocated funds for human resource priority. PROVIDUS is the leading partner in an
international project along with policy research institutes and researchers from Hungary,
Czech Republic, Lithuania and Poland with an aim to analyse results of distribution of the EU
structural funds in the five new EU member states.
Researcher: Gatis Litvins
Monitoring and regulating political parties, party funding, election campaigning
PROVIDUS experts already since 2001 have been closely involved with the issues of party
and electoral campaign financing. These issues became particularly topical in the end of
1990s when the World Bank linked the so-called state capture with large amounts of money
of unclear origins in the accounts of Latvian political parties. To this date PROVIDUS
experts have done seven election campaign monitoring rounds (municipal elections of 2001,
2005 and 2009; parliamentary elections of 2002, 2006, 2009, 2010) . Constantly evolving
and adjusting the project methodology, monitoring efforts consist of two main components
monitoring of paid political advertising and so called hidden advertising. During municipal
election in 2005, PROVIDUS monitored political party events and rallies, mobilizing a
network or regional observers and developing a unique methodology for this purpose. In
2006 and 2011 PROVIDUS also monitored media bias. PROVIDUS experts have lead the
discussion about various aspects of this complex issue and have actively advocated for
amendments in laws that provide for openness and accountability of political party financing.
Many of these suggestions are now part of Latvias political party, party funding and election
campaigning law.