A two-day meeting on deliberative participatory processes - September 18–19th in Warsaw. The aim of the meeting will be primarily to learn about examples of deliberative participatory processes from the Active Citizens Funds support area and to exchange experiences.
Problems and Purpose
We invite you to participate in an international initiative dedicated to learning about methods of deliberative participatory processes. We will create a space to exchange knowledge and compare experiences and perspectives from different European countries. Initiative is led by Shipyard Foundation, a member of a consortium running the Active Citizen Fund Poland (ACF Poland). The invitation is extended primarily to ACF Grantees from beneficiary countries, but also to anyone interested in the topic.
Recent years have brought an international discussion on the challenges of involving citizens in decision-making processes: how to ensure a greater diversity of participants and the possibility for different views to resonate? How to get qualitative findings? How to address difficult and controversial topics in an increasingly polarized society?
In the search for new approach, local governments and community organizations have started to turn to methods, using random sampling, ensuring representativeness, a longer process, incorporating deliberation based on expert knowledge*. Assemblies, councils or citizens’ juries are thus used. We can see that there is no turning point from this path. The European Union has even made it compulsory to include citizens’ panels in the process of making important legal changes.
We would like to search for and exchange knowledge about good, advanced deliberative initiatives that present more complex participative methods. As such we treat processes like:
- citizen’s assemblies, that use random sampling to create a group of participants that match the population, have experts to present the remit and use deliberation as a tool for a better discussion,
- more complex, long lasting processes, such as citizen’s juries and citizen’s councils, that also use randomisation, deliberations and expertise.
We would like to invite you to a two-day meeting on deliberative participatory processes, which will take place on September 18–19th in Warsaw.
The aim of the meeting will be primarily to learn about examples of deliberative participatory processes from the Active Citizens Funds support area and to exchange experiences. During the meeting, we will create a space for joint reflection on the shape of these processes and their impact on democratic practices in individual countries, as well as on solutions that bring the best results in terms of the quality of conversation on public issues. We also envisage a section dedicated to networking and relationship building.
We will present and discuss:
- citizens’ assemblies (e.g. the nationwide Civic Council on Energy Costs, the Citizens’ assembly on climate change in the Slovak city of Trnava, or the Hungarian citizens’ assembly in Érd),
- citizens’ councils (e.g. Citizens’ council on Climate Change or the Polesie Debate on Mining, Poland),
- citizens’ juries (e.g. citizens’ jury in the Újbuda district of Budapest, Hungary).
The meeting is primarily open to ACF grantees from the beneficiary countries, that are involved in participatory processes and seeking methods for in-depth, qualitative conversations on public issues, but also to anyone interested in this topic. The meeting will be held in English.
🙋 Applications take place via an online form and run until August 18th. Register for the event today!