Participatory Budget and Citizen Participation
Process development and digital tools for participatory budgets.
Digidem Lab supports neighbourhoods, municipalities and public institutions in conducting effective and inclusive citizen dialogues. We work with processes ranging from large cities like New York City and Chicago to local citizen budgets for Gislaved and Biskopsgården.
As official partner of the digital citizen platform Decidim, we develop and support digital citizen participation in combination with process design and facilitation. We offer support in all stages of developing, planning and implementing citizen participation processes to ensure inclusive participation.
We create citizen-centred processes based on internationally proven methodologies, with a particular focus on reaching underrepresented groups. Citizen-centred processes such as citizens’ or residents’ budgets have the potential to support public organisations in more effective and efficient decision-making. In addition, these processes create more interfaces between the organisation and citizens, which has the potential to strengthen both vertical and horizontal trust. In addition, research shows that those who participate in participatory budgeting are more likely to engage in other ways with civil society. For example, US studies have shown that voter turnout increases among those who participated in participatory budgeting processes.
