Participatory approaches for intergovernmental conferences

[Ria Baeck]

Posted by Ursula:

Dear mates,
 
Can anyone share an experience or knows about participatory approaches used for official intergovernmental conferences in the UN or UNESCO like environment?
 
I am working with a colleague who is looking into making a series of intergovernmental conferences participatory. It would help tremendously with hierarchy if we had some examples where it worked,  to show.
 
Thanks a lot!!
 
Warm greetings from again rainy Brussels,
Ursula Hillbrand

[George Por]

With my colleagues in Future Considerations, I co-facilitated the Action Lab of the Climate & Development Knowledge Network, April 3-7 in Oxford. It was a a multi-stakeholder innovation process to develop breakthrough solutions to climate-compatible development in countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. 180 participants from government, civil society, academia and business engaged on a one-week innovation process, augmented by use of Open Space, U Process, World Cafe, and online platforms, to develop 20 prototypes of new action. We got raving feedback.

We used that event for prototyping the design and hosting of large-scale, multi-stakeholder meetings on complex challenges. That direction of our work is very inspiring for me because it meets my appetite for bringing my energy to high-impact projects.

[Ria Baeck]

Script and newsletter from a Management Strategic conversation in the Joint Research Center in the European Commission, July 2008.