5.9 E-participation
Address
Youth Board of Cyprus
104 Athalassas Avenue
CY-2024 Nicosia
Tel: +357 22402641/601
E-Mail: alytra@onek.org.cy, youthwiki@onek.org.cy
Website
In July 2024, the Presidency launched the first online crowdsourcing platform for Youth, named 'EkfraCY', in an effort to promote the interactive two-way communication between the government and people aged 18-35 and facilitate the participation of young people in the design and implementation of policies that affect them. The platform aims to bring the voice of young people to the forefront, by collecting their views on specific topics and providing feedback from the Government and its officials . Specifically, registered members can submit their views and proposals on specific topics through thematic questionnaires that will be uploaded by the Government, but also submit their suggestions on any other issue of their interest. The design of the EkfraCY platform was based on the ease of registration and participation, in order to encourage the active involvement of all young people in Cyprus.
Moreover, the Youth Board of Cyprus encouraged young people to participate in the development, implementation and monitoring of the National Youth Strategy 2017-2022 through e-consultation processes which took place via the platform OPIN, an online youth participation platform. The platform resulted from a European-wide research project, the EUth funded by the European Commission (Horizon 2020).
In addition, youth organisations may also submit their policy proposals through the website of the Youth Policy Department of the Youth Board of Cyprus.
There are not any national data or studies examining the relationship between e-participation and youth political engagement.