Looking back: How does the government in Italy facilitate citizens' initiatives?

Italy is running a programme involving projects in 300 cities, practical experiments with forms of “shared administration” developed in Italy. Administrators in Italy are reassessing administrative practice and investigating: What happens when we trust citizens? Instead of “Why don't citizens trust the government?”, they no longer ask “What do citizens want?”, but “What can citizens do?”, and “How can we facilitate the development of citizen initiatives?”. The experiences in Italy and elsewhere offer valuable insights into the challenges that arise when roles clash. But also into opportunities that arise when there is room for adaptation and innovation.

On 28 November 2025, the NPBO organised a webinar with an international panel. The webinar was recorded and subtitled in Dutch.
You can also watch the webinar on Vimeo

Read the questions (with answers) asked during the webinar here (in English and Nederlands).
Read the Shared Administraion Regulation here.

Questions and feedback

If you have any questions you would like to ask the speakers, you can submit them using a form. You can also use this form to answer the questions below:

Would you like to discuss the content of the webinar further? For example, if you have questions that are better asked verbally than in writing, or if you would like to discuss ways of translating the experiences from Italy into Dutch practice.
In addition, we kindly ask you to contribute ideas for possible themes for a future webinar, unrelated to the Italian example. We are interested in learning about the topics that appeal to you most and how we could address them.

We welcome your responses via this form (Dutch).

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