International Centre for Sustainable Cities "Public Participation"

PUPLIC PARTICIPATION
Page 1

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND PARTICIPATORY PROCESSES
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WHAT IS PUBLIC PARTICIPATION?
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DIFFERENT WAYS
TO INVOLVE THE PUBLIC
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ROUND TABLES IN CANADA
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USING ROUND TABLES IN THE TRANSPORTATION SECTOR IN POLAND
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URBAN GREENING. PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN BANGKOK
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ENLISTING THE PUBLIC TO CLEAN UP CITIES
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EMPOWERMENT AND PUPLIC PARTICIPATION
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ICSC'S ROLE AS A BROKER
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ICSC'S CANADIAN TEAM-
PUPLIC PARTICIPATION AND MULTI-PARTY PROCESSES
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Is Public Involvement Making a Difference?
When the United States' President's Council on Sustainable Development reported in 1996, the document's title - Sustainable America, A New Consensus - spoke volumes about the importance of public participation and collaboration. "Our most important finding is the potential power of, and growing desire for, decision processes that promote direct and meaningful interaction involving people in decisions that affect them.…Communities throughout the country are demonstrating that it is possible to shift from conflict to collaboration when citizens find common values to guide community action."

The World Bank has made partnering with civil society the cornerstone of its comprehensive development framework. Its objectives include facilitating communication between the non-government organizations that make up civil society, and other stakeholders interested in improving the quality of development partnerships around the world.

It is one thing for public involvement to be a critical element in national and international policy, but the most tangible differences being made with public involvement are at the local level on issues such as the management of watersheds. Richard Burroughs of the University of Rhode Island concluded in the evaluation of a multi-stakeholder process for the Narragansett Bay on Rhode Island that, "as a result of this innovation in process, knowledge about environmental science and about citizen preferences is more widely shared. Synergism among process, knowledge, and motivation contributed to a much more acceptable plan for enhancing water quality."³ The same outcome is often the result of effective public participation in everything from locating waste sites to halfway homes for ex-convicts.

When public participation fails it is usually a flaw in the implementation. Two public advisory committees used by the Ontario Ministry of Environment in Canada to address toxic waste sites failed because there was confusion about the committee's purpose and function. The authors of the independent study conclude that governments may find themselves in a conundrum when they set out to involve the public. "They will be damned by the public as undemocratic and arbitrary should they refuse to engage in consultation, but they might be equally damned if they go ahead with the consultative process. The advisory groups they create will have important tools-the media and public opinion, most notably-at their disposal in order to circumscribe the government's options, and the decisions taken as a result of the consultative process may not be optimal from the government's perspective."⁴

Integrating public participation with political decision-making is another challenge. Although laws and regulations may be in place requiring public involvement, the outcomes of these processes can be far from satisfactory if there is:

no clear description of how decisions will be made, who will make them, and how public input will be used;

no incentive for the agency to better incorporate public input;

no training and awareness among senior managers and decision-makers about how to incorporate public input into decisions to engender public confidence and to have longer-lasting decisions.⁵
⁵ Marion Cox and Audrey Armour, "Integrating Public Input into Environmental Decisions: How Far Have We Come?” Interact, The Journal of Public Participation, Fall

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