Research on good practices for advisory councils to municiplaities based on broad citizen participation and derivation of guidelines and recommendations for implementing the experience studied under the URBANCOOP project.
Group of services:
Services:
Objectives:
The development focuses on creating a comprehensive consultancy mechanism for the Municipality of Gabrovo, which will improve the interaction with stakeholders in the development, implementation, and evaluation of sustainable urban development policies. It is based on a study of good practices and lessons learned on the topic in a European context.
Team:
Contracting authority:
Challenges in the process
- Identifying the channels for gathering information that would be useful for the creation of guidelines recommendations to the municipality of Gabrovo
- Gathering information through various research methods: desk research of documents and reports, interviews with international partners, and organizing focus groups in Bulgaria
- Analyzing and comparing various international examples and integrating them into the local context
- Proposing a new structure that does not duplicate existing ones in the municipality of Gabrovo and that refutes the municipal resource commitment for its existence
- Combining theoretical knowledge with the specific needs and capacities of the municipality of Gabrovo to develop the application-conceptual part
- Create guidelines for the activities of an advisory mechanism serving the municipality of Gabrovo based on international and national experiences with different cultures and circumstances
- Consideration of the interests of local government, civil society organizations, and businesses
- Assessing the potential of tools to influence different methods of inclusion
- Structuring tools by category and setting out the aspects to be evaluated.
Approach of work
The report highlights two approaches to the work: research and applied-conceptual. The two approaches present two main parts to the report, each using different working methods. In the research part, five methods stand out:
- Identification of channels for information selection in four contexts: international partners of the UrbanCOOP project (Italy, Spain, Ireland); the ComUnityLab network (Portugal, Italy, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, Netherlands, France); Bulgarian municipalities participating in the Citizen’s Input project (Karlovo, Kardzhali, Montana, Targovishte) and the experience of Gabrovo municipality
- Extract of relevant information through 3 methods: desk research of reports and official documents; individual interviews with UrbanCOOP partners and the Mayor of Gabrovo Municipality; creation of focus groups in Gabrovo Municipality
- Individual, systematized analysis for each case, which includes information about the scope and the partner, how the individual practice works, what the interaction mechanisms, who the stakeholders are, what the results are, positive and negative aspects
- Identification of successful principles and mechanisms applied in each of the four contexts and what lessons have been learned in the examples reviewed and the municipality of Gabrovo
- Study and highlight the specifics of the municipality of Gabrovo: Historical context, Current demographic situation, Economic potential, Existing structures for cooperation, public attitudes, Challenges, and the Need to bring together structures for consultation.
In the first half of the applied-conceptual part, guidelines are developed for the establishment of a Consultation Mechanism at the Municipality of Gabrovo, its structure being:
- Defining the objectives, scope, and subject of the research
- Proposing a toolkit and methodological approach of the reserach
- Formulating working principles that guarantee transparency, dialogue, and efficiency
- Envisaging measures to ensure publicity and transparency of the work of the mechanism
- Proposing an approach for identifying the Counsil of Sustainable Urban Development members, structured at three levels: core, broad, and observer.
In the second part of the applied-conceptual part, two lists are compiled with all the practices for stakeholder engagement identified in the study. One presents tools derived from the experience of the reviewed practices, and the other focuses on the tools included in the proposed Consultative Mechanism. The methods by which the two lists were structured are:
- Structuring six key aspects by which the tools are assessed: empowerment, inclusion, knowledge exchange, digital transformation, communication and planning
- Grouping the tools into four categories: “Expert events”, “Public information”, “Opinion surveys”, “Broad public engagement”, with two more groups in the list based on shared experience: “Financing instruments” and “Other”
- Evaluating each tool according to the degree of its potential to impact the inclusion characteristics subject to assessment within the scope of the UrbanCOOP project.
Output
- Research on good practices for citizen participation at European, national, and local levels
- Systematization of lessons learned from attempts at inclusion at European and local level
- Developed objectives, scope, and subject matter of the Consultative Mechanism
- Principles for the operation and publicity, identification of members, of the Consultative Mechanism
- A set of engagement tools was developed with guidance on their benefits in diverse contexts.
