deliberativa

Civic lottery and citizen agreement

For: Tolosa Town Council (Gipuzkoa)

In collaboration with Arantzazulab.

Design of the institutionalisation of deliberative processes in Tolosa, a municipality of 20,000 inhabitants in the province of Gipuzkoa, after a first successful experience of a Citizen Assembly on Mental Health in 2022-2023.

More than 35 organisations in Spain have signed a Manifesto that includes measures in the field of Democratic Regeneration to improve democratic health in the country. This responds to the lack of concrete measures related to citizen participation in the Action Plan for Democracy presented by the Spanish Government on 17 July, 2024.

It is urgent to generate spaces for collective reflection in order to involve citizens in the current challenges, reach long-term agreements and strengthen the legitimacy of public policies.

You can consult the manifesto here: Manifesto – Measures for democratic regeneration (in Spanish)

Co-organisation of the Autumn School on Citizens’ Assemblies with the Federation for Innovation in Democracy – Europe (FIDE).

The objective of the School is to train professionals through the acquisition of practical skills and applicable knowledge to activate citizen deliberation processes.

It brought together to Barcelona international and local experts to discuss best practices and case studies in the framework of collective learning.

Within a Consortium composed of cambiaMO, Vilnius Tech University, Deliberativa, Fundació EURECAT and the Departament d’acció exterior i govern obert – Generalitat de Catalunya.

Lead Institution: European Union, Horizon Europe programme

CLIMAS aims to support a transformation towards climate resilience by offering an innovative toolbox that includes, among others, deliberative mechanisms.

In this framework, Deliberativa focuses on how to generate the best framing (mandate) for citizens’ assemblies, and the best way to manage the knowledge that is transmitted to the Assembly, focusing on the Climate Assembly of Catalonia. The aim is to move from climate assemblies that provide technical answers (guided by expert knowledge) to assemblies that solve value-centred dilemmas (taking into account different stakeholder positions).

Action plan designed with Political Watch y Komons

The objective of Ampifying Democracy campaign is to achieve a broad political and administrative commitment and broad social support to advance in a democratic renewal in Spain based on citizen participation and deliberation. Three axes of work from Deliberativa:

• disseminating and promoting deliberative practices in civil society and institutions:
  • Amplifying Democracy Manifesto (February 2024). Annex 3: Incorporating deliberative processes and citizens’ assemblies into public decision-making processes
  • For a Citizens’ Convention on Housing in Spain (April 2024). We promote, together with Gobierno Transparente, the holding of a deliberative process on housing, in order to think about long-term policies that do not depend on electoral changes.
• accompanying governments in the initial phase of conceptualising and designing deliberative assemblies: we are working with public administrations in several territories.
• initiating in 2023 Delib, a network of Deliberative democracy promoters in the Iberian Peninsula.

For: Ihobe, Basque government

In collaboration with Arantzazulab y TMelab

Design of the Euskadi Citizens’ Assembly, a figure that the Basque Country Energy Transition and Climate Change Law, passed on 8 February 2024 by 82% of the Basque Parliament, includes in its Article 12 (“The Assembly will be a forum to generate collective reflection and knowledge, allowing citizens to inform themselves, deliberate and reach consensus on the solutions to the major transformations that need to be undertaken to achieve climate neutrality as soon as possible and to make the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country more resilient to the impacts of climate change, with a fair and supportive perspective.”).

Within a Consortium composed by Missions publiques, Danish Board of Technology, IFOK, other organisations and Deliberativa

Lead Institution: the European Commission

Framing and knowledge provision for 3 European Citizens’ panels of 150 people each; the members of the panels are chosen through a stratified lottery in the 27 countries of the European Union, and deliberate in 24 languages on 3 different themes (food waste, learning mobilities, digital worlds) during 3 weekends each from Decembre 2022 to June 2023.

Video: what are European Citizens’ panels

For: Gipuzkoa Provincial Council, Arantzazulab, TMelab

Consultancy on the design and implementation of a Citizens’ Assembly composed of 32 citizens of Gipuzkoa (Basque Country, Spain) to answer the following question: How can we guarantee the agricultural activity of Gipuzkoa to face the climate emergency?

The Assembly has been held between November 2022 and January 2023. Here are the 9 recommendations produced by the Assembly, in Spanish and Basque.

Devolution sessions by the Provincial Council: 14 March 2023, November 2023 and October 2024.

Follow-up of the recommendations:

• March 2023: oficial response of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa to each of the recommendations, in Spanish and Basque.
• November 2023: degree of compliance with the commitments made, in Spanish and Basque.
• June 2024: update of the degree of compliance with the commitments made, in Spanish and Basque.

Evaluation done by Parte Hartuz (Basque Country University – UPV-EHU):

• quantitative evaluation (Spanish)
• qualitative evaluation (Basque)

Film about the process (in Basque and Spanish, 2023).

For: Generalitat de Valencia (Commissioner of the Presidency of the Generalitat for the Valencian Plan of Action for Mental Health, Drug Addiction and Addictive Behaviour) and University of Valencia

Consultancy on the design and implementation of a Citizens’ Convention composed of 70 citizens of the Valencian Community to answer the following question: How should mental health, drug dependence and addictive behaviours be addressed in the Valencian Region?

Recommendations report, april 2022
Documentary (Spanish), april 2023 (27 min)

eldiario.es, 4/04/2022
El País, 5/04/2022
Buergerrat (English), 5/04/2022

Within a Consortium composed by Missions publiques, Danish Board of Technology, IFOK, other organisations and Deliberativa

Lead Institutions: The European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission

Process design and implementation, within the Conference on the Future of Europe, of 4 citizens’ panels of 200 people each; the members of the panels are chosen through a stratified lottery in the 27 countries of the European Union, and deliberate in 24 languages on 4 different themes during 3 weekends from September 2021 to February 2022 (here the 4 recommendations reports).

Subsequently, 80 citizen ambassadors from the 4 panels met in 7 working sessions with MEPs, national MPs and representatives of civil society, in the framework of the Conference Plenary. They worked on the recommendations to turn them into proposals presented to the European Parliament on 9 May 2022, in the presence of Ursula Van der Leyen, President of the Commission, Roberta Metsola, President of the Parliament, and Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic.

In the framework of a consortium formed by Deliberativa, i4policy and iwe and with funding from European Climate Foundation, Scottish Government, One project, Climate Emergency Collaboration Group, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

Partner institutions: UN – COP 26

Process design and implementation of a global online assembly composed of 100 participants and 100 mediators/recruiters. The draw was designed using a population density map that gave everyone on the planet an equal chance of being selected. The mediators recruited, translated and remunerated the participants. A special effort was made to meet the socio-economic criteria.

After 68 hours of deliberations, a document called “People’s Declaration for a Sustainable Future Planet Earth” was produced.

For: Barcelona City Council, Department of Culture, Education, Science and Community, Units of Participation, Democratic Innovation and Youth

Consultancy on the design and implementation of a deliberative forum made up of 99 young people aged between 16 and 29 to answer the following question: As a young person living in Barcelona, what would you need to carry out your life project?

Recommendations report that includes responses from Barcelona City Council (Catalana and Spanish), February 2022

Return sessions organised by the City Council for members of the Fòrum Jove: 2 July 2021, 7 February 2023.

Documentary about the process (Catalan and Spanish), December 2021, 13 min.

Award: IOPD 2022 (International Observatory for Participatory Democracy). Special mention in the framework of the “Good Practice in Citizen Participation” Award, together with 6 other initiatives.

Innovación democrática : Barcelona 2015-2023 [p. 145 – 180]

For: OECD

Partner Institution: Government of Cantabria, Regional Ministry of Economy and Finance

Process design and advice on the implementation of a citizens’ jury composed of 35 people chosen by civic lottery among the population of 10 municipalities of the Besaya basin to answer the following question: How to use European funds in the Besaya area to create and maintain jobs while respecting the criteria of a just and inclusive ecological transition?

Recommendations report (Spanish), July 2021
Complementary report (Spanish), July 2021
Response of the Government of Cantabria to the recommendations (Spanish), May 2023

For: Generalitat de Catalunya

Co-design and facilitation of an online workshop to explore Good Practice Principles for Deliberative Processes for Public Decision Making published in June 2020 in an OECD report.

For: Danish Board of Technology and European Commission

Facilitation of an online one day event with 50 randomly selected Spanish citizens to recommend priorities to the Mission on Climate adaptation and societal transformation