1. Who they are

K-Monitor was founded in Budapest in 2007 by a group of young activists to improve the levels of transparency, accountability and the rule of law in Hungary. Civic participation and technology-driven solutions are among the organization’s key instruments. The organization became one of the leading anti-corruption NGOs in the country. K-Monitor develops tools by which public expenses become trackable, decision-makers can behold accountably and works on methods that allow citizens to participate in decision making. They are also among the founders of Code for Hungary and a network of tech volunteers and civil society groups. K-Monitor is a member of the TransparenCEE Network, a group of civic tech organizations from the CEE region.

2. What they did

K-Monitor organized a two-day workshop called “Conspiracy for Democracy” one-day workshop was organized in Budapest on June 4th. The workshop’s main topic was the collaboration of local governments, local candidates running for elections and activists. 20 participants explored how successful partnerships can be established and how they can be sustained. The main topic of the event was transparency and the inclusion of citizens in the local decision-making process, especially budgets and development plans.

During the workshop participants coming from Italy, Spain, UK, Romania and Hungary were

sharing experiences, both successes and failures. Due to the participants’ interest, the originally conceived one-day WS has been expanded in progress and connected with another workshop that was originally planned for municipalities.

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3. Why is this relevant to the FundAction community?

Democracy and the belief that it has to be rebuilt through bottom-up processes were the main focus of the initiative. K-Monitor wanted to analyze methodologies that could allow citizens to have more opportunities to participate and political representation to become transparent and accountable. This process needs to be supported by advanced technologies that allow access to public information, new ways of interaction with political representatives and new forms of decision-making. Real democracy goes hand in hand with inclusivity as it demands participation from all members of the society and provides equal chances to influence and shape decisions.