On Thursday, 22 August, we ran the 6th meetup in our ‘Öffentliches Gestalten – shaping public sector’s future’ series. We dedicated it to creating better policies.
The event description said:
Governments create policies to change citizens’ realities. That’s at least the theory. How well a new law, a piece of a policy, or a statutory order is developed, written, and reevaluated then determines everything that’s next. It influences how well it can be implemented and how effective it will be. That is true on national and local levels. The experience citizens have with their government depends on the quality of the underlying policy. That’s why we need to discuss how policymaking is done well.
In this event, we will hear from different experts on their exceptional work in the policy space—which is much more exciting than the topic may suggest.
My colleagues Mike Pierce and Sabrina Feuerherd delivered the first talk from the German government’s Digital Service. They spoke about their work on ‘Digitalcheck’ and how they support digital-ready legislation, legislators and law drafters.
Afterwards, legal designer Rojda Tosun introduced her approach to public legal design. Rojda shared her viewpoints and motivations. She explained how she works with lawmakers and policy drafters, created a legal design toolkit, and worked on a justice service in Guinea-Bissau.
The event received a 4.9 rating based on feedback from 7 attendees. 57% said they would attend again. That is an overestimation. When asked at the beginning of one of the last few events, only 10 to 20% stated they had participated in a previous edition of the meetup series.
The format attracts new people constantly. People often come because of the specific topic of the day. Attendees interested in urban mobility might not return for public health care or policy design. That’s fine.
The meetup series runs roughly once per season. We are planning 2 more events in the remaining months of 2024.
I would like to do a meetup on ‘Filling the gaps of government’ and invite people who pick up the slack and do what government should do instead.