Pioneers of Participation’ in Local Government: A Workshop for Southern and East African Practitioners

Call for nominations for participants

This is an invitation to nominate individuals whom you consider to be ‘Pioneers of Participation’ in Local Government, from Southern and Eastern Africa, to be considered as potential participants in a workshop to be held in November 2009.

Please respond by Thursday: 4 September 2009

This invitation by the ‘Pioneers of Participation’ Local Organising Committee (LOC) is for nominations of relevant politicians, officials, community leaders together with representatives from civil society organisations and academics from Southern and Eastern Africa, to attend a workshop to explore the implications of participatory democracy and community empowerment for local government, to be held in Cape Town from the 09‐13 November 2009. The workshop aims to educate and inspire Southern African practitioners, and establish a network and community of practice that could form the basis of future initiatives.

Background

This initiative has been inspired by the Champions of Participation international workshop held in the UK, and organised by the Citizenship Development Research Centre at IDS, University of Sussex in partnership with Logolink and various donor organisations that bought together 44 people (22 from the UK and 22 from 14 other countries) in May 2007 to share experiences and lessons of citizen participation in local governance.

The idea

The workshop aims to inspire and support people who have direct experience of citizen participation and community empowerment. It will widen their horizons, provide new insights through debate and shared learning and hopefully have a wider impact on policy development in the region. Hence the LOC hopes to bring together participants with diverse backgrounds but with similar values and ambitions of promoting pro-poor participatory democracy within local government and to help give disadvantaged communities a say over the development they receive.

The event will bring together at least 40 participants from the sub-continent and also participants from countries like Brazil and India, where the LOC has noted innovative work such as participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre in Brazil, in order to learn from other inspirational cases.

What we are seeking

We are seeking 'Pioneers of Participation' with significant experience in promoting citizen engagement in local government and stories of successes or difficulties to share with other champions. We invite nominations from the following categories to invite to the workshop:

• Local government officials and elected representatives who have a track record of promoting citizen engagement in local governance initiatives
• Representatives of citizens' groups that have a history of engagement with local governments to open up local decision-making processes and ensure greater participation and accountability
• The LOC anticipates calls nominations for 43 participants from Southern and East Africa: 18 from South Africa and 25 from Angola, Mozambique, Lesotho, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Kenya and Tanzania.
• All participants from local authorities from both Southern Africa and overseas must have a demonstrated track record of having broken new ground in empowering their citizens and communities through the creation of new participative approaches to service delivery and governance.

We would ask you to nominate organizations, local government authorities or individuals from Southern and Eastern Africa, and supply us with their details.

The purpose of the workshop is to:

• discuss the benefits of, and incentives for, greater citizen engagements in local governance processes, and particularly those involving the delivery of services;
• showcase and examine practical working models of engaging citizens in decision-making around local governance and service delivery;
• consider the challenges and costs of promoting greater citizen engagements faced by local officials;
• identify practical and creative approaches to overcoming the challenges to promoting greater citizen participation in local governance;
• develop strategies, knowledge and a support network for ‘Pioneers of Participation in Local Governments’ across Southern Africa in a way that would raise the profile of this agenda and support its implementation.

These purposes will be achieved through a 5-day workshop from the 9th to the 13th November in Cape Town South Africa that will provide the space for sharing, learning, reflection and inspiration on the benefits of, incentives for and challenges to promoting greater citizen participation and engagements in local governance on the sub-continent:

• A two and a half day workshop in Cape Town. Carefully designed interactive sessions that combine a presentation of key findings from current research, the sharing and exchange of experiences, and open and frank discussions on both emerging research findings and the practical considerations for taking this agenda forward
• A one day study visit to selected local authorities where particular challenges or initiatives of interest can be identified, that provide opportunities for direct interaction with various stakeholders
• One-day re-grouping and policy dialogue in Cape Town to share feedback from the site visits and workshop sessions with participants and others from supporting organisations and the public. The forum will also and invite decision-makers’ and development funding agencies’ reactions to the challenges and lessons raised, given their various mission statements, policy commitments and strategic objectives.

What will participants get out of it?

The workshop will provide a space for sharing, collective learning and reflection. Equally important, the proposed meeting would generate the following:

• Documentation of the workshop proceedings for use by the CGTA and others to help galvanise support for empowerment policy and implementation. The workshop proceedings could also be used by CGTA and other national agencies supporting local authorities to develop practical guides for public officials to encourage greater recruitment and ‘buy-in’ to the ideals of participatory governance and citizen empowerment, and to help them put these ideas into practice.
• A network of practitioners in Southern Africa, with linkages to other ‘like-minded’ practitioners in other countries. This network is important for several reasons. In the first instance, the network could become an emerging ‘community of practice and learning’ providing peer support and learning for practitioners experimenting in new forms of participatory governance. It could also serve as a common platform from which specific concerns and issues for local authorities could be raised and collectively dealt with. At the same time, this network could also serve as a consultative forum for national offices and agencies responsible for policy and operational support to local authorities.

Key Themes
The workshop will serve as a safe space for open and honest conversations around key themes relating to:

• institutional design for deepening democracy in modern society including (i) forms of participation that complement representative democracy, (ii) different mechanisms for empowering individuals and groups in local decision-making, and (iii) new forms of transparency and scrutiny, and (iv) new forms of bottom-up accountability
• developing the political will and confidence for real devolution amongst leaders, especially political leadership
• developing forms of popular mobilisation to ensure that citizens not only have ‘presence’ but also have ‘voice and ‘influence’ over decisions
• developing new skills and support for representation and leadership
• pay special attention to the issues of (i) budgeting, (ii) development and (iii) poverty alleviation as regards appropriate participatory practices for policy development and especially implementation

What would be expected of participants before, during and after the workshop?

• Nominees will be asked to provide in the first instance a brief write-up of their experiences of promoting citizen engagement with local governments, including dilemmas and challenges. Ideally they will base these on inputs gathered from their colleagues and peers in their own local authority or citizens' group, as well as their own individual perspective. These will be used as the basis for selecting those to be invited to the workshop.
• Some participants will be asked to make more substantial presentations on these case studies during the workshop's first two days.
• Participants will be expected to participate fully in the site visits to local government areas in the Cape Town area where they will engage with local government officers, elected representatives, citizens' representatives and community groups; and in the debriefing sessions organized in Cape Town on the final day.
• On returning to their places of work and activities, they will be expected to organize feedback and dissemination sessions to share with their colleagues, peers and co-citizens the experiences, debates and ideas arising throughout the workshop.

So…
We expect you know practitioners in Southern and Eastern Africa in local government, community groups or citizens' initiatives who have stories to share and would benefit from participating. Please send the following details to Bonginkosi Masiwa at bonginkosi@isandla.org.za by 4 September 2009

• their full names (organization/local authority, or individuals within it),
• their contact details (especially telephone numbers and e-mail addresses)
• what your relationship with your nominee is; and
• whether you think your nominated person/organization would be able and willing to present their experience and learning during one of the site visits.

We are prepared to consider self-nominations; and also nominations of more than one person, if the nominees are a mixture of officers, elected representatives and citizens' representatives who have been involved in interesting initiatives together.

Nominees will be contacted by the LOC immediately and asked to provide on a form some basic information about themselves and about the case or experience they could share at the workshop.

We look forward to receiving your nominations, and thank you for your interest and support in this initiative.