Stop and Reflect: Fair Local Green Deals cities met in Wroclaw to improve their public participation processes

“We are getting more and more convinced that the way to transfer key policy frameworks like the European Green Deal to the local level while strengthening democracy and justice values is by offering a framework that can be adapted to existing plans and strategies happening in cities.” says, Franco Crudi, Officer Governance and Social Innovation at ICLEI Europe.

In a workshop in Wroclaw, Poland, the #FairLocalGreenDeals project invited city officials from Gent, Łódź, Vitoria-Gasteiz and Valencia to stop and reflect on the outputs of their initiatives and the impact they will have on citizens.

In the past months, each of the five local governments has identified key stakeholders that have interest in and/or power over selected pressing challenges they want to solve in their cities and started to involve them in a participatory and deliberative process. The topics range from developing  a food policy (Wrocław), circular economy practices (Gent) and green spaces (Łódź) to a citizen empowerment plan (Vitoria-Gasteiz) and a set of guidelines to include justice and inclusion into the work on the EU Mission to become climate neutral by 2030 (Valencia).

The workshop included a training session by Sara Nardi and Thøger Riis Michelsen from Volcano, guiding the cities on how to get closer to their citizens and become better at facilitating (or selecting facilitators for) public participation processes. Participants learned about the five competencies a facilitator should have to create an accepting, respectful and empathetic atmosphere: 

Read the full guide here.

Authors: Franco Crudi, Julia Kittel