2024 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"

18th Edition

Phase 6 of 7

Publication Preparation 08/09/2024 - 15/10/2024

Process phases

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Province of Córdoba: ECOSISTEMA AYUDAR. A Large-Scale Democratic Practice

Official proposal

21/05/2024 17:59

ECOSISTEMA AYUDAR (Ecosystem to Help) is a large-scale democratic practice that learns, articulates and walks. The experience presented here is the joint learning and institutional articulation of 280 public and private organisations that worked independently and that in the exit of the pandemic (2022 and 2023) articulated efforts to implement 21 self-managed programmes of participatory democracy and social inclusion (See Annex 3), impacting in a synergic way on 34 civil society organisations and directly on more than 4,000 citizens from the most vulnerable sectors of the province.

ECOSISTEMA AYUDAR is made up of 280 institutions from the following sectors:

The Provincial Council of Social Policies with the participation of 12 provincial government agencies and local governments, and 65 civil society organisations (business chambers, trade unions, social movements and NGOs);
82 Neighbourhood Councils in which the residents of the province participate directly and which carry out more than 12,000 social actions annually with an indirect impact on more than 700,000 residents;
103 Sports Halls where health promotion, recreational and cultural activities are carried out;
The Forum of Rectors of Universities and Higher Education Institutes (12 academic authorities);
The Interreligious Committee for Peace (COMIPAZ) made up of 6 religious leaders of different faiths.

The proposed practice of participation and articulation is a large-scale experience of cross-learning and complementary synergy between 95 public bodies and intermediate institutions of a representative nature, whose flow of energies has a vertical logic (top-down), and 185 neighbourhood institutions of a horizontal nature in which neighbours take the floor and participate individually, raising complaints or suggestions to the municipalities and communes (bottom-up logic). At the end of 2019, these numerous and complex synergies will apply for participation and social inclusion projects to the Government of the Province of Cordoba. 21 projects were approved, financed and implemented in the period 2022 and 2023 with a public-private investment of more than 20 million pesos, with optimal quantitative results and long-term qualitative impacts that have exceeded initial forecasts. The ecosystem is currently preparing for the 2024 call of the Ayudar programme.