Champions of Participation

Olivio Duarte, former Mayor of Porte Allegre, birth place of particpatory budgeting and Aaron Schneider, IDS fellow.

Champions of Participation

An international learning experience took place when champions of participation in local governance from all over the world spent a week together in the UK . The event, organised partly by the Citizenship DRC, culminated on Monday 4 June at Church House, London , in a policy dialogue with Under-secretary of State for Communities and Governance, Angela Smith MP.

Representatives from Brazil , India , Chile , South Africa , Nigeria and many other countries met with UK local government staff, citizen representatives and elected officials to learn from each other about how citizens are able to participate in local politics and contribute to decisions that affect their communities.

During the first two days at Lewes , Sussex , participants found that although their contexts were different, they used common language and faced similar challenges in trying to encourage citizen participation. These included sustaining citizen participation, managing resistance and handling power differences, engaging community members that are hard to reach, and having the necessary political will including a policy framework that embeds participation.

Participants also discussed the relationship between local and central government. Vince Howe, a Neighbourhood Renewal Officer with Newcastle City Council in the UK said, 'To hear what is happening outside of the UK context in India , Bosnia , Norway etc, has helped me think outside the box. In other countries it seems more normal for local government to challenge power in central government. We don't do that enough in the UK '.

Participants divided into groups to spend two further days in Bradford , Newcastle , London and Somerset . Here they saw the challenges on the ground in the UK and saw different initiatives created to encourage citizen participation. They also met with citizens who are engaging constructively with their communities and local governments.

Many international participants said they had seen processes and initiatives that they would like to implement in different ways in their own countries. Emmy Alividza M'mbwanga from the Kenyan Local Government Reform Programme visited Somerset and was enthused at the way that the council had devolved certain powers to area bodies to cover a large geographical area. She commented, 'I was able to relate quite well to the rural area of Somerset . I was interested in the area level – as local government is able to meet people at the grass roots'.

A final day in London brought the participants back together to share experiences from the field visits and to communicate some key messages to Angela Smith MP, the Under-secretary for Communities and Local Governance in the UK .

The messages related to NGOs and the voluntary sector, appointed local government officials, elected representatives and central government. Participants suggested that central government should trust the participatory processes they are promoting and should recognise champions of participation at every level. Angela Smith, MP who engaged in a dialogue with participants said, 'Letting people know they can make a difference is key to making participation work. Showing that they can affect change really makes a difference to participation'.

Olivio Dutra, the former Mayor of Porte Alegre, Brazil, the birthplace of participatory budgeting, made a final contribution by saying, 'Participating in the budget is not the only way for citizens to participate, but I think without it, it would be impossible for citizens to feel empowered…I will leave with a strong care and respect for the participatory process which enables the individual to build solidarity and enables communities to strengthen and deepen democracy'.

The event was sponsored by the Institute of Development Studies , the Department for Communities and Local Governance (DCLG), the UK Department for International Development, and the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA).

A full report of the event will be out shortly.