Roma Capitale presented its Digital Agenda, a 5 years’ plan aimed at the digital transformation of the administration in a citizen-centred perspective and accordingly with Europe 2020 strategy, on February 2017, identifying five strategic objectives:

• transparency and accessibility of the Administration, also in terms of civic participation to the decisional processes;
• extended offer of digital public services to citizens and enterprises;
• efficiency and effectiveness improvement of the internal processes of the Administration;
• social growth enabled by the diffusion of digital culture;
• Roma Capitale as a national innovation lab.

Therefore the City Council has specifically addressed “the citizens’ participation to the decisional processes of the Administration through the adoption of participatory and direct democracy instruments” by modifying the institutes of participation and popular initiative included in the Statuto (City Chart) of Roma Capitale, introducing and enforcing new forms of participatory and direct democracy at a local level, on January 2018. Subsequently, on September 2018, the City Board stated its commitment to support and promote a discussion aimed at the implementation of a “Magna Charta” for direct and participatory democracy amongst the cities of the world. Finally, after the pilot project #RomaDecide, which involved more than 2.000 citizens of the 8th Municipality (one of the 15 in which is subdivided the whole territory of Rome Capitale), the City Council has approved the “Regulation of the participatory budgeting of Roma Capitale” as a tool of participation and public consultation in order to enforce the confidence of the relationship between citizens and institutions and to reply to the necessities and needs of the city community, improving the effectiveness of the Administration.

Considering that Internet has become increasingly indispensable to the present day-by-day life of citizens, society, enterprises, associations and public administration, Roma Capitale joined and executed several initiatives in order to fight against digital divide, to protect the digital rights and, in the meantime, to enforce the role of the digital services: the launch of the new institutional accessible website, together with the 4 new activity areas of the Digital Agenda (empowering digital services, growing digital competences, implementing open government, improving public connectivity) are all parts of the same strategy. No one should be left behind.

In addition to that, Roma Capitale already joined international initiatives regarding open government and digital transformation, such as The European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC), the Open Government Partnership, the Digital Transition Partnership, Eurocities. Accordingly with the New Urban Agenda, Roma Capitale promotes the use of digital platforms and tools to improve the social, economical and environmental dimensions of the urban life: in March 2018 the City Council decided to join the Italian Alliance for the Sustainable Growth (ASviS), in order to grow the awareness of the importance of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development amongst the Italian society, business and institutions.