Policy Challenges

 

 

Our communities face big challenges - climate change, social exclusion, declining trust in public institutions, and so many more. Meaningful public participation can help governments address these challenges. By sharing decision-making power, governments can make communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change, better include marginalized residents, and open up new spaces for everyone to participate in civic life.

But it’s hard to engage people in decision-making in meaningful and effective ways! Governments and civil society organizations face many common challenges:

How do we pick the right participatory process?
How do we coordinate diverse and demanding stakeholders?
How do we include marginalized communities?
How do we deliver equitable results?
How do we build trust between people and the government?
How do we use digital technology to engage people?
How do we make sure that decisions are implemented?
How do we make participation transparent and accessible?

The Participation Playbook can help you overcome these challenges. It offers specific strategies, tactics, and approaches that have been proven to work in diverse contexts around the world. Learn more about these participation solutions.

Policy Spotlight

Launching a participatory program focused on a specific issue can present additional challenges. We’re producing thematic versions of the Playbook to help you design a process for key policy issues. Our first policy focus is climate change.