deliberation

Working in collaboration with municipal governments and civil society, the project seeks to establish Citizen Assemblies in three cities in Brazil to facilitate public participation in policymaking to address poverty and inequality. Building on experience from Brazil and elsewhere, the aim is to demonstrate to public managers, political leaders and citizens alike the feasibility and value of open, inclusive deliberation to build sustainable and widely supported policy responses to complex issues. Results and lessons from the project’s three pilot efforts will be shared at national level. Increased cooperation among policymakers and civil society will address declining public political participation even as it contributes to more equitable and sustainable urban development. The project includes activities relevant to the Covid-19 crisis as it impacts civil society and ensuring that responses uphold their rights and are inclusive of their needs.

Making democracies more inclusive requires bold and innovative reforms to bring the young, the poor, and minorities into the political system. Some countries have piloted initiatives for assemblies on specific issues where members are not nominated by political parties but chosen at random for a limited term to represent all sectors of society, to prevent the formation of self-serving and self-perpetuating political classes disconnected from their electorates. The project aims to enable more countries to develop initiatives of this kind. It will develop and distribute a handbook on ‘Democracy Beyond Elections’ designed to show how nations at various levels of development can apply the principles of representation and deliberation in ways that are appropriate to their economic and educational circumstances. The project will fund three pilot projects to further the demonstration effect and produce a documentary based on one of these to demonstrate how deliberative democracy can work in practice. Among citizens, the project will work to build the sense that ordinary people are involved in making decisions that affect them, and thus to promote trust in Government. Among elected representatives, the project will work to stimulate a greater openness to complementary democratic models in which citizens explore and recommend policy solutions on key issues.

The project’s objective is to support in an inclusive way the monitoring of governmental efforts to implement UN treaty body recommendations, by bringing together civil society organizations and parliamentary actors to develop a monitoring mechanism; conducting a capacity development programme on international human rights law, monitoring, and advocacy in four regions; and mobilizing legislators to effectively exercise their roles and responsibilities in holding the government accountable for its commitments to implement UN treaty body recommendations.