2022 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"

16th Edition

Phase 8 of 8

Award Ceremony at the IOPD Conference 06/12/2022 - 10/12/2022

Process phases

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Milan: Feasibility plan of a Permanent representative Citizens’ Body (PCB)

Official proposal

07/06/2022 09:49

The work carried out in relation to Citizens engagement and outreach represented the preliminary steps necessary for Milan to set fully on track the start of its decarbonisation pathway over the coming years. Policies about climate change must necessarily include public participation. It’s thus fundamental that local communities in all their components, understand and activate the leverages able to produce social innovation and promote behavioural changes. One of the sections of the PAC (Climate Action Plan) is actually dedicated to the involvement and empowerment of the city stakeholders who have to be informed and enabled to actively contribute to the decarbonization of the city. A main role in Milan will be played by testing, and afterwards implementing, the innovative form of “draw democracy” represented by the co-design process for the Permanent Civic Body of sorted citizens which has been summarised in a Feasibility Plan.

The objectives of the PCB are:

1. producing recommendations on all the PAC actions, via the realisation of a PCB Bill to be analysed and implemented following the PAC monitoring phases;

2. representing the civic monitor of the PAC Actions and allowing for the citizens voice to be hard and listen to.

This Body is here intended as a non-temporary organism that represents the new methodological challenge with which even the most advanced participatory democracy experiences in Europe are starting to try their hand. In this sense, the Permanent Civic Body does represent a further step toward deliberative democracy: the institutionalisation within the policy cycle of the already realised experiences of Citizens Assembly on Climate. It has also to be accounted for being innovatively bold and being able to overcome participation in climate policy as a stand-up moment of a few weeks/months while instead proposing a participation of citizens in climate urban policies on a permanent basis. Even the selection aspects and the Register of “Active Citizens for Climate” related to it, are seen as innovative compared to the already existing participation mechanisms. These characteristics of our Permanent Civic Body are unique and quite particular among the international bigger cities taking a clear stance against climate change. These innovative aspects clearly emerged also during the cross-cities learning sessions and the discussions with the experts on participation democracy.

PCB main characteristics are represented by:

the citizens’ sample composition (by gender, age group, municipality to which they belong, etc.), as well as the periodic rotation of participants, able to facilitate the active participation of Milanese citizens and the consideration of their voice, opinions and wishes.
The periodic rotation of the participants in the PCB will guarantee an equitable participation in the planned activities as it is also accompanied by specific moments and training / communication tools aimed at eliminating the need to possess previous knowledge and specific skills on the subject, as well as aimed at removing all the obstacles that they could prevent an active participation of all.

More information:

www.comune.milano.it

https://partecipazione.comune.milano.it/processes/piano-aria-clima/f/20/proposals/183?component id=20&locale=ca participatory process slug=piano-aria-clima

https://www.oidp.net/docs/repo/doc1253.pdf