Democracy Residencies in the Global South
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During the month of October, CILA was present at Demo.Reset, an initiative coordinated by Extituto (members of the Consortium) that aims to transform the landscape of democracy in the Global South (especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, India and Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe). During a 10-day Lab, participants worked on prototypes to address barriers to deliberative democracy in the Global South.
As a next step of the Lab, Demo.Reset has to test the prototypes of the barriers. To this end, together with a partnership with People Powered, a global hub for participatory democracy that focuses primarily on supporting organizations in the Global South, they are inviting People Powered members and Demo.Reset organizations to participate in the Democracy Residencies programme. Through this three-month programme, which will take place between February and May 2023, participants will help develop innovative tools and projects that address common challenges of participatory and deliberative democracy. In the process, they will network with other organizations and practitioners and learn from experiences and good practices from different regions. Participants will be able to participate as host organizations or visiting residents.
But what is Democracy Residencies?
Through collaborative work, host organizations, residents and other actors will test or develop a priority project for practitioners of participatory and deliberative democracy. By testing initiatives, they will assess whether the idea is effective, understand the main opportunities and risks of the initial idea, and identify the next steps for future implementation.
Some of the projects are prototypes proposed through Demo.Reset. The other projects are proposals prioritized by People Powered members during their 2023 planning process. Members first discussed challenges to work on and ideas for ideas to address them. They then proposed specific projects and prioritized them through two rounds of review and evaluation.
The themes are very varied. From participatory spaces with rural farming communities, interactive platforms to include youth in decision-making, to the creation of low-cost participatory technologies and the generation of content on deliberative democracy.
At CILA, we support these kinds of initiatives to improve the institutionality of Democratic Governance across the Global South and to work towards greater Deliberative Democracy.
Stay tuned for more news!
