What we learned about Participatory Governance? 

Learnings from our discovery and exploration: 

• By observing, measuring and analyzing the dynamics of social capital and vulnerability, we learned about the relationship between collective action and the reduction of vulnerabilities. We found a significant relationship between participation in collective community asset management and reduced economic vulnerability.  

• From our experiences hosting participatory processes, we have learned that participatory governance is nurtured by the same innovation capacities that function as strategic enablers of better participatory processes and spaces, and a more effective governance in general.   

• The principles, skills, tools, methods and methodologies of our learning cycles, and of participatory action research and people-centered design methodologies in general, are, if appropriately transferred and adapted to the context, a first set of strategic enablers for participatory governance.   

• From mapping and exploring cases of participatory governance, we have learned that although there are institutionalized spaces for citizen participation, the protagonist and binding character of these spaces, for them to have influence and reach levels of empowerment, is still very limited and vulnerable to the dynamics of political patronage or leadership's lack of will.  

• In addition, it is a challenge to design innovative institutional mechanisms for participation and participatory governance processes in order to achieve efficiency in the processes and provide confidence to citizens.   

Learning from experimentation through Tavarandu: 

From the capacity building experience, we learned:  

• The training has provided a platform for networking and peer learning.   

• The program was effective in generating learning on participatory governance and social innovation. 80% of the participants who completed the evaluation process incorporated the knowledge of participatory governance and social innovation.   

• The instrument most mentioned by participants was the Municipal Development Council, which represents a strategic opportunity: There is a real opportunity for participatory governance in territorial planning processes, within the current regulatory framework coordinated by central government institutions.   

• Face-to-face learning remains key to learning these skills. The face-to-face workshops were the ones that best established the knowledge and generated the greatest involvement, especially in their playful components that allowed for dynamic learning through play.   

• Based on the experience of the course, a successful case is the municipality of Fram, which has managed to incorporate citizen participation bodies such as the Municipal Development Council, and others of a more consultative nature, to diagnose problems and redirect actions.   

• Citizen participation is a concept that is well regarded and valued but is sometimes understood in a very generic way. The challenge is to strengthen a more precise and actionable understanding of participation.    

• An organisational and cultural verticality persists that places the will of the institutional political leadership, the mayor, as the determining factor that enables or disables democratic innovation initiatives.   

• The low political will to create binding spaces for participation is evident in the fact that the most used instances are still those of consultation and accountability, rather than those of effective co-construction of processes, such as, for example, the elaboration of participatory budgets.   

From the implementation of these capacities through the Hechackuaa Citizen Lab, we learned: 

• Hechakuaa, as a citizen laboratory, represents an innovative and flexible participatory design, which contextualises and combines design thinking principles to bring as many voices as possible into a process of co-creation and implementation of community solutions to sustainable development challenges.  

• As with training, face-to-face attendance remains key.  

• Sustainable development objectives, localized at the city level, and driven by local community members, offer a collaborative mission framework that makes it possible to synthesize different interests in the general interest.  

• The constitution of a driving team with community organizations is a determining factor that provides sustainability to the process.   

• On a small scale, we were able to observe that the articulation of plans and projects between the community and the government led to concrete and solvent actions.   

• Finally, we observed that citizen participation is mobilized around the real possibilities of changing their reality. The possibility of implementing community-based solutions to development problems co-created by the community itself encourages participation and commitment in the process.   

And finally, from the bootcamp and hackathon to develop civic technology, we learned:  

• The adoption of digital platforms for citizen participation in Paraguay faces numerous barriers that condition its potential as a tool to democratize and broaden the scope of participatory governance:   

               - the difficult task of building multidisciplinary teams that effectively integrate people from technology, design and activism to solve the complexity of structural barriers to citizen participation,   

             - the lack of political will and promotion by the state for civic technology projects that go beyond informational or consultative initiatives,   

                - connectivity barriers and the steep learning curve associated with existing open-source platforms for digital participation, which also generally offer little documentation in Spanish, and   

                   - the permanent digital divide is also expressed in the limited skills and experience in using technologies, It is difficult for them, to find the motivation and confidence to dedicate their time to actively participate in the governance of their territories and communities.  

• Despite the barriers, our experimentation with developing civic technologies also allowed us to identify opportunities:   

                 - latent problems and needs at local and community levels generate a strong level of engagement and interest in young people who are beginning to learn about technology, which is an opportunity for creativity and innovation in using digital tools for future participation,    

               - the dissemination and diversity of citizen participation platforms already developed, open, available, adaptable and usable, with their communities of practice and development,   

             - the potential of university outreach and university partnerships to give birth and sustainability to communities of practice focused on civic technology.   

This wealth of learning and findings presents us with an opportunity to continue contributing to the development of a democracy that is increasingly open and participatory, across all levels and sectors of our society. Let’s all join to continue this learning journey together.