The OECD’s framework ’The Principles of Public Administration’ (2023) highlights open governance as well as ensuring that stakeholders and general public are actively consulted during policy development and that users are at the centre in design of administrative services.
Finland shares the principles of the framework and has placed a citizen-centric approach at the core of its national strategy on public governance. Also previous research literature[1] indicates that this kind of human-centric approach, participation, co-creation and dialogue practices are widely adopted and becoming evermore integrated in the public sector’s practices.
Getting here has, and will always, require commitment. For a long time we have been developing new innovative ways for citizen participation. We have had success but there is still a lot to do. People do not always feel that their voices are genuinely heard. We need to shift our focus even more from the government’s perspective to that of the citizen and ask: are our ways of engaging people really meaningful for them or are they built more to serve the needs of the government?
Finland is a country of high trust, but still too little faith in the possibilities to be heard. When we develop new ways or reform existing ways of engagement, we need to think about the actual moment and time when the citizen participates or is engaged. It is of utmost importance that participating has an impact on what government does, but the impact chain is often long and takes time. The moment of participation should also be meaningful per se to the people participating. When we develop new ways this should be a guiding light for us.
In our National Dialogues (our good practice of participation and involving citizens in Finland), this has been a core goal. The aim behind the dialogues is that they will contribute so that all of us in Finnish society will be able to better understand each other. While we are getting important information from the dialogues for our policymaking on how citizens see the major societal challenges, dialogue participants can increase their understanding of the theme, of each others’ viewpoints and also understand one’s own thinking better. The dialogues provide the government with important information, but even without that, they would be essential.
A concrete example of a dialogue that was organised under the National Dialogues on the theme “Living in uncertain times” was a dialogue that a hospital in the capital area organised for young cancer patients as part of the National Dialogues. The hospital got extremely valuable knowledge for its own development work from this dialogue as did the government for nation-wide work. But being able to discuss how it feels as a young person to live in uncertain times with cancer was meaningful and valuable to the patients too, as they could reflect their own situation and that of their peer patients. This helped them in their difficult situation.
Our National Dialogues is a tool where we, jointly with civil society, work for better dialogues and give people a stronger voice. Anybody can participate in these dialogues and anybody can organise such a dialogue. In the past few years, we have had 800 dialogues on various subjects, organised by over 200 different organisers. It is essential to remember that society does not change only through government decisions, but through people's actions. Therefore, not only do we get important information through the dialogues but they also provide an opportunity for people to think about things, increase joint understanding of the challenges and in this way lead to actions that can make a difference.
The co-operation and co-creation of government and civil society is often overlooked in current efforts to strengthen participation. To really reach different audiences and those less well heard in the society, we need this joint action. It needs to be done on an equal footing. Therefore, for instance, in our dialogues the themes are always chosen together based on dialogue and mutual trust and not by government alone.
Participation may take different forms on different levels and fields of governance. In local governance there is an even longer tradition of involving citizens. Besides participative budgeting and different residents’ events, municipalities have for example children’s parliaments, youth councils and councils of elderly and handicapped people. There is a process through which citizens can have a say in city planning in their neighbourhood. Even the children in the day care centres may participate in the planning of daily activities at the level that they are able to given their age. The forms of local participation are multiple.
We aim to strengthen the culture of good discussion and exchange of opinions in our society. It is vital that everyone in society has an opportunity to listen and to be heard on current and future issues. 
Future power belongs to everyone. Therefore, listening and dialogue skills are important in the local, regional and national government. We need to, and we can learn to, be better at both.
Everyone should have the right to understand and be understood. Hence, we have put emphasis on how to make our decisions and reforms easier to understand. As a concrete tool, we have for instance prepared e-training on easy language for all civil servants. The importance of easy to understand language becomes even more relevant when we talk about complex issues of the future. We have to be able to make them more understandable to everyone. It is crucial if we want people to participate and have a voice in our society. If you cannot understand, it is hard to trust and feel trusted and difficult to have a voice.
In our future world, there will be several possibilities to develop citizen participation further. There are for example numerous ways that AI and digitalisation can help us engage citizens. However, we will only truly succeed if we remember that it is all about the people.
[1] Kinder T. and J. Stenvall (2023): Problem-solving and Learning for Public Services. Springer.
Rajala T., Laihonen H. and P. Haapala (2018): Why is dialogue on performance challenging in the public sector? Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 22 Issue: 2, 117-129.
Uusikylä P, Virtanen P, Jalonen H., Lintinen U and H. Ketamo (2024): Maailman paras julkinen hallinto? Julkisen hallinnon strategian merkitys suomalaiselle hallinnon kehittämiselle. Valtioneuvoston kanslia.
2024 OECD Global Forum on Building Trust and Reinforcing Democracy
This blog is part of a collection of opinion pieces that showcases diverse perspectives on the new frontiers of citizen participation, from thought leaders and practitioners across national and local government, academia, business, trade unions, and civil society. It offers insights and inspiration for discussions at the 2024 Global Forum on Building Trust and Reinforcing Democracy, and future multidisciplinary work at the OECD.
The Global Forum takes place in Milan, Italy, 21-22 October 2024. Register to follow the discussions online: https://www.oecd-events.org/global-forum-on-democracy/en
This blog article should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its Member countries. The opinions expressed and arguments employed are those of the authors.
