2024 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"

The "Tavarandu" programme emerged from the Acceleration Laboratory of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Paraguay as a response to the need to revitalise citizen participation in a context of growing distrust in institutions and a deterioration in the quality of democracy. The experience in Natalio, Paraguay, combined with a young and dynamic municipal team and the support of the local consultancy Mentu, allowed us to address this challenge by implementing an innovative and participatory approach to local governance. 

We designed and implemented a training programme for municipal officials. This programme focused on training public employees in participatory methodologies, public innovation and the use of civic technologies for the design of municipal development plans. The training consisted of face-to-face sessions followed by virtual mentoring sessions, which allowed for comprehensive and continuous training.

Simultaneously, we organised citizen laboratories, meeting spaces where citizens could actively participate in identifying local problems, generating solutions and making decisions. These labs, facilitated by trained officials, adopted an inclusive and horizontal approach, encouraging the exchange of ideas and collaboration between different community actors.

To ensure the effectiveness of our intervention, we implemented a rigorous evaluation and monitoring process. We used questionnaires to collect data from municipal officials before and after the training, comparing their level of participation and use of participatory methodologies. In addition, we developed rubrics based on the Ladder of Participation to assess the quality and level of citizen participation in the citizen labs.

A highlight of our practice was the inclusion of Natalio's adolescents in the decision-making process. Recognising that their voice is rarely heard in municipal planning, we designed a specific workshop for high school students. During this workshop, adolescents were able to share their opinions, ideas and concerns about the future of their community, thus contributing to a more inclusive and representative vision of local development.

• https://www.undp.org/es/experimento (External link)