Institute of Development Studies

Champions of Participation present final report

Alison Dunn - 25 January 2008

An international project to share learning amongst Champions of Participation in local government across 15 countries has culminated in a release of a final report, and a policy dialogue around its findings with key UK policy makers. On January 24th 16 front-line government officials from the UK met with Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, MP, to exchange views and experiences of championing participatory democracy within local government. They handed her the report from the Champions of Participation event that took place in June 2007 in the UK where representatives from Brazil, India, Chile, South Africa, USA, Nigeria and many other countries met with UK local government staff, citizen representatives and elected officials. The report confirms the critical role of these people inside government to ensure participation works, and also provides many key lessons for those playing this role. Participants from Nigeria, South Africa, China, USA, Bulgaria and Spain joined the meeting via video and telephone links.

Participants told Hazel Blears that despite their different country contexts, how citizens can act more effectively in government and how power can be shared is a global, not just a UK agenda. Participants also talked more specifically about the implementation of the new UK Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill which states that councils have a 'duty to involve' citizens. Hazel Blears remarked “The international element of this is quite special. Often the pitfalls in the UK are that we over-engineer everything. We use exclusive language. Lessons from these countries are excellent in helping us think through what we can do.”

Participants also met with Gareth Davies, Managing Director for Local Government of the Audit Commission, to discuss new plans by the government for auditing the quality and contributions of citizen involvement. 

Application of new learning

The value of the international exchange since June 2007 was evident with participants applying new learning to their own contexts. Shazia Hussein from Tower Hamlets, London, for example, applied learning from the champions of participation workshop in June 2007 in the process of developing Haringey's Local Area Agreement and Sustainable Communities strategy. Mike Huggins, City Manager in Wisconsin, USA said of the June 2007 event, “For me it was both transformational and transactional experience. Opportunities to look at democracy and citizen participation in different contexts gave me so many insights into my experiences. As I listened to the champions at the workshop and saw their efforts to expand democracy in contexts where it is not very easy renewed my passion and energy for participatory democracy. And seeing things in a different culture gave me ideas about what to do at the local level.”

“The value of the international learning that took place is that it gave people confidence to use different approaches, it validated their ideas and experiences, reinforced learning and reflection on our work, and made us more explicit about what is needed in our own localities,” said Tricia Zipfel, who played a key role in organising the events.

The June 2007 Champions of Participation event focused on how local government can encourage and empower citizens to participate in local politics and contribute to decisions that affect their communities. Although there has been emphasis and focus on how civil society engages in government and on institutional design and processes for participation, little attention has been paid to the role of champions of participation inside government, whether they be elected officials or government officers.

These events were sponsored by the Citizenship DRC and Logolink. A resource pack will accompany the report shortly with case studies of the international experiences, a policy briefing paper and CD with useful resources.