Pulse - Participatory Democracy

Goicoechea promotes human development through an approach based on citizen participation and human rights

Goicoechea (133,557) | Social Inclusion - Participatory Democracy

Initiatives led by Goicoechea's Human Development Department range from awareness-raising campaigns on non-discrimination, human rights trainings for local officials and participatory budgets; all set in a diverse and peripheral municipality of Costa Rica’s capital city.

« Among the specific initiatives carried out by the Department, the Tables for Dialogue stand out as a pioneer process on citizen participation. The tables aim at promoting people and community self-organization, and to co-create public policies through community workshops »

Goicoechea's Human Development Department

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Grenoble realizes the notion of inclusive citizenship through participation and human rights education

Grenoble (162,780) | Participatory Democracy - Diversity

Due to its economic dynamism, Grenoble received a high number of migrants throughout the last century. At present, the city carries out several policies to help build and inclusive notion of citizenship: participation, human rights education and civil society empowerment.

« The Council of Foreign Residents relies on the notion of residence. Indeed, all residents who live in Grenoble after several years pay their taxes and often participate in the social life of their neighborhood. Our goal in promoting and supporting the Council is to demonstrate that foreign residents’ participation in municipal life can enrich local democracy and be a catalyst of social cohesion »

Bernard Macret, Deputy Mayor of Grenoble on International Solidarity of Grenoble

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In Saillans, local democracy is built upon transparency, collegiality and citizen participation

Saillans (1,251) | Participatory Democracy

The small town of Saillans has been carrying out an innovative and relevant experience of local democracy and community self- organization since 2014. The Saillans experience is based on three intertwinned concepts: transparency, collegiality and citizen participation.

« For us, the biggest challenge is to reach those that do not participate in participation mechanisms. One advantage in our village was that we had the chance of review our local master plan, which gave citizens a much broader perspective on issues like habitat or the environment »

Vincent Beillard, Mayor of Saillans

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In Bogotá, social control fosters transparency and citizen participation in the government of the city

Bogotá (8 million) | Open Government - Participatory Democracy

Halfway monitoring and transparency, Bogotá’s Veeduría Distrital is devoted to the municipality's preventive control. More specifically, the Veeduría is in charge of promoting “social control” ; a local mechanism for monitoring the municipal administration in a democratic way.

« In order to carry out our duty to detect corruption risks, the Veeduría follows two course of action that we advance in a complementary way. The first one is to work with local entities and the second one is to work with directly citizens. It is in this framework where social control emerges as a mechanisms for monitoring and citizen participation where citizens ask and public administrations are turned accountable »

Jaime Torres-Melo, Veedor Distrital of Bogotá

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Madrid has developed an open software that allows cities to promote direct democracy in local policy-making

Madrid (3,1 million) | Direct Democracy - Human Rights

Decide Madrid is a digital platform promoted by Madrid municipality in order to provide citizens with mechanisms of direct democracy. Decide Madrid has already engaged thousands of citizens in projects ranging from urban planning to participatory budgeting or human rights.

« It is going to be all city dwellers who decide how cities work. This is a global trend. People takes the streets to claim that they have to be the ones who decide. It is our task to provide an answer to this will (although we can’t do it by ourselves). Our approach is to design tools - in this case, software - so that other cities can advance direct democracy »

Miguel Arana, Director of Participation of Madrid