What if citizens could co-create policies, budgets, and plans as transparently as editing a wiki? Decidim is turning that question into reality, providing digital infrastructure for participatory democracy that is open, auditable, and built for trust.
Born in Barcelona and used worldwide to boost citizens’ participation, Decidim gives governments, institutions, and communities the tools to engage citizens in shaping decisions at scale, without compromising democratic integrity.
The What
Decidim is a free, open-source platform for participatory democracy. Built with transparency and accountability at its core, it allows citizens to propose ideas, deliberate, vote, follow public consultations, and even co-create government budgets. Every interaction is traceable, every process auditable, ensuring decisions are not only made with citizens, but by them.
The platform is modular and highly configurable, suitable for city councils, universities, NGOs, and national governments alike. NGI support has helped Decidim modernize its architecture, revamp its user interface, and strengthen the platform’s ability to scale securely.
For What
Decidim is used to empower democratic innovation across sectors: from civic planning and participatory budgeting to policy co-creation and institutional governance. It’s a go-to tool for organizations that want to move beyond consultation and toward genuine citizen engagement.
Unlike closed civic tech platforms or top-down engagement apps, Decidim enables truly democratic participation—transparent, decentralized, and under public control.
THE REACH
Decidim is now used by over 400 institutions in more than 30 countries, spanning local councils, parliaments, universities, and civic networks. From Helsinki to Mexico City, and from the French Senate to local assemblies, it has become a trusted foundation for participatory democracy in action.
Its ecosystem includes more than 150 contributors and a growing community of developers, researchers, and democratic innovators.
THE MILESTONES
Supported by NGI and a strong civic tech community, Decidim has undergone a major platform revamp in 2024–25. This included a new frontend framework, performance enhancements, and the consolidation of code for easier development and scalability.
What started as a local government experiment has become a global standard in digital democracy, offering a credible, open alternative to proprietary civic platforms and making democratic participation as accessible and verifiable as digital collaboration itself.
