Promoting Deliberative Democracy in the Basque Country in Spain

3. The Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly: addressing mental health through deliberation and community involvement

Abstract

This chapter takes stock of the Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly, a deliberative process that gathered 32 randomly selected citizens that convened between October and December 2022. It describes the design choices of the assembly which includes the remit, the stakeholders, the civic lottery criteria, or the sources of information. It also summarises the five sessions that occurred throughout the learning and deliberative phases.

Building on an independent evaluation, this chapter assesses the Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly against the OECD Good Practice Principles for Deliberative Processes for Public Decision Making. Finally, the OECD and Arantzazulab enumerate six learnings that have been identified in the spirit of improving future deliberative processes in the region.

Introduction

Arantzazulab is a democracy and governance innovation laboratory that promotes new forms of collaborative governance between public institutions and civil society, with the ultimate aim of empowering citizens, promoting collaborative governance in public policy and deepening democracy. As part of its mission, Arantzazulab promoted and implemented two deliberative processes to experiment with collaborative governance and innovative citizen participation, one at the municipal level in Tolosa and the other at the Provincial level supported by the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council.

Table 3.1. Comparative description of the Tolosa and Gipuzkoa deliberative processes

Name of the process	The Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly	The Gipuzkoa Citizens’ Assembly
Description	Tolosa Local Council initiated this process in September 2022 in collaboration with Arantzazulab and with support of international experts (OECD, DemocracyNext and Deliberativa). Concerning the topic chosen for the process, Tolosa Council wanted to build on public-community collaboration that emerged during COVID-19 to respond to people’s needs. Issues like isolation, loneliness, depression, and anxiety came to the forefront and Tolosa Council took this opportunity to learn how to best support citizens and their initiatives in this area.	The Gipuzkoa Citizens’ Assembly was launched in November 2022 by the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council, Telesforo Monzon eLab and Arantzazulab, in collaboration with experts in these deliberative processes (Deliberativa). The Gipuzkoa Provincial Council considered it was necessary to gather citizens’ opinions on a challenge in connection with the future of the primary sector. The objective was to involve citizens in discussions of issues directly addressing the future of agricultural activity and the climate emergency.
Question	What can Tolosa Council do through public-community collaboration to achieve a Tolosa that improves the health and emotional wellbeing of all?	How can we guarantee agricultural activity in Gipuzkoa to address the climate emergency?
Assembly members	32 residents, as per the criteria established to describe local diversity: age, gender, level of education and where they live.	32 residents, selected as per the criteria established to represent the territory’s diversity: age, gender, level of education, where they live, and one values-based question: their preference of buying local products.
Hours of deliberation	40 hours over five weekends.	40 hours over four weekends.
Implementation teams and stakeholders involved	Content committee: five experts and/or sector practitioners. Promoters: Arantzazulab and Tolosa Council. Support: OECD and DemocracyNext Facilitators of meetings: Two organisations (Prometea and Aztiker), and five facilitators. Contrast Committee: the three political parties represented in Tolosa Council and Arantzazulab Evaluation team: Aktiba research group, University of the Basque Country, three researchers.	Content committee: six experts or practitioners in the sectors connected to the question. Promoters: Arantzazulab, TMelab and the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council. Collaborator and expert support: Deliberativa. Facilitators of meetings: two organisations (Aztiker and Artaziak), five facilitators. Contrast Committee: political parties represented on the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council, and organisations working on the topics of the Citizens' Assembly. Evaluation: Parte Hartuz research group, University of the Basque Country, five researchers.
General calendar	September 2022: sending out invitation letters and civic lottery. October-November 2022: Initial meetings. Input of information from experts and professionals operating in the sector. November-December 2022: Deliberation sessions. 17 December 2022: Presentation of recommendations to Tolosa Town Hall. 25 March 2023: Public event to reply to recommendations, by Tolosa Town Hall. 4 November 2023: First session of monitoring of the implementation of the recommendations to the members of the Citizens' Assembly.	September 2022: civic lottery, letters sent. November 2022: Initial meetings. Input of information from experts and professionals working in the sector. December 2022-January 2023: Deliberation sessions. 14 January 2023: Presentation of recommendations to the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council. 14 March 2023: Public event to reply to recommendations, by the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council
Total number of recommendations	14	9

Source: Author’s own elaboration based on (Arantzazulab, 2023[1])

In 2022, Arantzazulab and Tolosa’s City Council agreed to organise a deliberative process as a pilot to experiment with sortition and deliberation to address public problems in a collaborative manner. The Tolosa Citizen Assembly ran in parallel of the Climate Assembly organised at the province level in Gipuzkoa (see Box 3.1).

This report describes the case of the Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly, from inception to implementation, detailing its design features and the lessons learned along the way for all the stakeholders involved. The following pages take stock of the process to design, implement, and evaluate this process – and evaluates it against international standards, like the OECD Good Practice Principles for Deliberative Processes for Public Decision Making (OECD, 2020[2]). The Gipuzkoa Citizens’ Assembly is described in Box 3.1 and more information can be found on the dedicated website1.

Box 3.1. The Gipuzkoa Citizens’ Assembly: addressing climate change through the first sector activities.

From November to December 2022, the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council gathered 32 randomly selected citizens to deliberate on issues directly addressing the future of the first sector and the climate emergency. The process was opened by Eider Mendoza, Deputy for Governance of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, who highlighted the commitment adopted by the Provincial Council and the relevance that this process has on governance innovation.

The Assembly met during four weekends for a total of 40 hours of deliberation. The Gipuzkoa Citizens’ Assembly was tasked to answer the following question: ‘How can we guarantee agricultural activity in Gipuzkoa in order to face the climate emergency?’ The 32 members of the Assembly were selected via civic lottery, with an initial send-out of 15 000 letters to randomly selected households, and a stratification among the participants that accepted the invitation. The second stage of the civic lottery followed seven criteria: age, gender, education level, language knowledge, place of residence and the importance they give to buying local products.

The Provincial Council accepted all the recommendations

In January 2023, the Citizen Assembly presented the following nine recommendations to the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council:

1. Return economic compensation to rural landowners based on their contribution to ecosystem services and disseminate these values to society.

2. Promote forest management through R&D and by making it a strategic sector.

3. To turn the primary sector into a strategic sector by moving from an economic to an ecosystemic valuation through the participation of the different stakeholders involved.

4. Raise awareness in society from childhood about the world of agriculture and climate change.

5. To study measures for the rejuvenation of the primary sector.

6. Promote KM.0. from the 1st phase of production.

7. Promote strategic organic farming through the creation/expansion of bodies responsible for increasing competitiveness, productivity and commercialisation.

8. Promote local produce by adjusting tax rebates.

9. Encourage professional mixed farmhouses (“baserri” in Basque).

In March 2023, the Provincial Council published a response to the recommendations, explaining their decision to implement a number of recommendations and shared an update on the implementation status in November 2023.

Source: Author’s own elaboration based on Arantzazulab’s website: https://arantzazulab.eus/en/the-deliberative-sessions-of-the-gipuzkoa-citizens-assembly-come-to-an-end-with-the-presentation-of-the-recommendations-to-the-general-assembly/; and the process’ website: https://www.gipuzkoa.eus/es/web/herritarrenbatzarra/que_es

Designing the Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly

The OECD provided technical assistance in particular to build capacities and knowledge through a series of workshops held with Arantzazulab, Tolosa Council, and other stakeholders which are described in the following sections. The OECD Deliberative Democracy Toolbox, in particular the OECD Good Practice Principles for Deliberative Processes for Public Decision Making, provided a basis for the workshops and the design process (OECD, 2020[2]).

The idea of holding a deliberative process in Tolosa benefitted from political support among the three political parties represented in the City Council. All the political parties2 agreed to support the organisation of a deliberative process and committed to the implementation of its result. Political commitment to the process and its outcome remains throughout the process, even after the municipal elections in May 2023 and the change of Mayor.

Framing the topic and remit for the process

As for any other participatory process, the first task is to define the problem citizens will help solve, to then frame it as a question that the members of the Assembly will answer. To increase the impact of the process, it is important that the question relates to a policy area in which the public authority can act, and when possible, that both the process and the question are accepted and supported by representatives from across the political spectrum as this increases the commitment to act upon the recommendations.

The post COVID-19 context played an important role in defining the Assembly’s topic. The City Council saw appropriate to select a topic that reflected both the challenges experienced during the pandemic, as well as the positive impact which translated in high levels of cooperation, and solidarity among citizens. After numerous meetings among the OECD, Arantzazulab, and civil servants from Tolosa, and asynchronous exchanges with councillors, mental health emerged as the most suitable topic. During the pandemic, the issue of mental and emotional wellbeing came to the forefront, with citizens experiencing acute levels of loneliness and isolation and responding with ingenious collaborative approaches to provide solutions to the situation. In Tolosa, mental health is perceived as a community issue.

The final question was phrased as: What can Tolosa Council do through public-community collaboration to achieve a Tolosa that improves the health and emotional wellbeing of everyone?

The question was deemed relevant for a deliberative process, as it pertained to issues of mental health and emotional wellbeing, opening various policy avenues on which Tolosa Council could act, such as city planning, digital policy, green urban spaces, and associationism, among others. In addition, its emphasis on public-community collaboration also reflected the Municipality’s interest in building on the long-lasting tradition of collaboration, and a renewed energy of organised civil society and spontaneous citizen initiatives that sprung up during the pandemic. Among the 733 representative deliberative processes included in the OECD Deliberative Democracy Database, 58 of them focus on health-related topics (8%), positioning it as the fifth most frequently addressed subject (OECD, 2023[3]).

Selecting the stakeholders to involve

The process was implemented by a diverse coordination team, with members from various stakeholders. As shown in Figure 3.1, Arantzazulab and Tolosa’s Council coordinated the different implementation teams, which included both internal (those involved in organising and running the process) and external (charged with providing the necessary information, evaluation, and oversight). External observation and the inclusion of non-governmental stakeholders in the design and implementation of the process ensured the integrity of the process, in accordance with the OECD Good Practice Principles for Deliberative Processes for Public Decision Making (OECD, 2020[2]).

The internal teams were composed of a Monitoring Committee, and a Steering Committee – comprised of three sub teams: Civic Lottery, Communications, and Facilitation. The Monitoring Committee included Tolosa’s political representatives and Arantzazulab staff, who conducted the high-level follow-up of the implementation of the Citizens’ Assembly. The Steering Committee (and its three subgroups) were tasked with the design and implementation of all stages of the process. These were made up of representatives from Tolosa Council, Arantzazulab, contractors (Aztiker and Prometea) and experts.

The external teams were in charge of Oversight, Content, and Evaluation. The Oversight Committee ensured the rigour and transparency of the process, ensuring that citizens could be confident in the process integrity. The Content Committee was made up of mental health experts and practitioners, ensuring the accuracy and neutrality of the information provided to participants. Lastly, the Evaluation Committee was made up of researchers from the University of the Basque Country tasked with conducting an external evaluation of the process, using the OECD Guidelines for Evaluating Representative Deliberative Processes (OECD, 2021[4]).

Figure 3.1. Implementation teams in the Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly

Source: Author’s own elaboration based on (Arantzazulab, 2023[1])

Defining the criteria for the civic lottery

Considering the size of Tolosa3, the topic selected, and the type of recommendations that would be sought by the Council, it was decided that the Assembly should be composed of 32 members, to be selected via a civic lottery. For comparison, according to OECD data, the average total number of participants in citizen juries taking place at the municipal level is 42 (OECD, 2023[3]). Thus, 32 members is consistent with international standards for a smaller town like Tolosa.

To this end, Tolosa’s Council, with the help of Aztiker (external contractor), sent out 2.450 letters to randomly selected households, inviting them to register for the deliberative process. Anyone aged 16 and over living in Tolosa was eligible to receive a letter and register for the process. Participants could register from 22 September 2022 to 10 October 2022 via a dedicated website, email, or telephone. This gave participants three weeks to register for the process, slightly below the average of 5.2 weeks according to OECD data (OECD, 2023[3]), but appropriate for a process of its size and scope.

In total, 255 individuals responded positively to the invitation and expressed an interest in participating in the civic lottery. 170 people reached out by telephone, while 85 did so by email. This speaks to the importance of setting up multiple (both offline and online) communications channels for potential participants, especially in those pioneering experiences where not much is known about Citizens’ Assemblies. Ultimately, 103 citizens agreed to take part in the process, marking an acceptance rate of 4.2%, compared with an average of 6.1% for other similar cases (OECD, 2023[3]). The 162 individuals that declined the invitation mentioned work/studies commitments (37), unprepared or unwilling to participate (22), care or conciliation (21), feeling unqualified (17), excessive dedication demanded by process (8) as main reasons.

32 assembly members (and 32 reserves) were randomly selected and stratified4 among these four criteria: gender (2-3 groups), age (6 groups), place of residence (4 groups), and education level (5 groups).

Deciding the information and learning sources

The responsibility of the Content Committee (see Figure 3.1) was to ensure participants received accurate, relevant, neutral, and accessible information. The Committee was formed by Goretti Soroa Martinez, a professor and researcher at the Psychology faculty at the University of the Basque Country; Felix Arrieta Frutos, social services and politics area at Deusto University; Iker Arriabalaga coordinator of family services at the AGIFES association; Maitane Egurza, practitioner at Izan Foundation; Eider Murgiondo Mugica, nurse in the public health system in Tolosa. The Content Committee had four main tasks:

1. Mapping the political dilemmas of the chosen topic and question suggested by Tolosa Council as those dilemmas and possible solutions have different costs and benefits associated to them and different ideological sectors analyse them in different ways.

2. Creating the curriculum for deliberation including the information kit given to all assembly members at the beginning of the process, as well as selecting the initial speakers present in the assembly. The curriculum was made up of facts and data, i.e., elements on which experts agreed, and information on the dilemmas, i.e., the values that inform different policy choices, as well as their costs and benefits. The information kit was made up first of an explanation of the citizens’ assembly process, followed by the key information selected by the Content Committee itself regarding the topic at hand.

3. Selecting speakers for the learning sessions including a first batch of experts who presented on the first session, as well as a smaller list for the second session, to allow for Assembly members themselves to choose other speakers if they so desired. The main criterion for the speakers was to be their ability to communicate clearly. Speakers should be able to deliver general presentations of a secondary school level.

4. Validating the speakers’ presentations prior to the learning sessions to ensure they were appropriate for the purposes of the Assembly. The Content Committee provided guidance and feedback to ensure the presentations were clear, accurate, relevant, and considered various viewpoints.

Several speakers presented during the information phase of the deliberative process: Fernando Fantova, a social policy expert and consultant; Martín Zuñiga, a social worker and researcher at the University of the Basque Country; Amaia Uriarte, a specialist in family therapy and treatment of psychopathology in children and adolescents; Pepa Bojo; a psychologist specialised in gender violence and community empowerment; Jone Miner an architect in charge of the Urban Development Department of Tolosa Council; and Adriana Martínez, director of APTES (Association for the promotion of social technology) and specialising in community support networks.

Clear commitment to an inclusive process

Inclusion was an important dimension for both Arantzazulab and Tolosa City Council. This translated into design choices to promote an inclusive process. Firstly, it was decided to show respect for the participants’ time, and to incentivise participation from often-excluded populations, the Tolosa Council remunerated participants the amount of 444€ for the whole process (five days and 40 hours). This presented a substantial administrative challenge, since it was the first time the local administration paid citizens involved in a participatory process.

Secondly, to increase learning, the design of the work sessions included visual elements, interactive presentations, and both plenary and small group discussions. The aim was to cover the different kinds of learning styles (visual, listening, kinetic, etc.) and to ensure a smooth experience for the participants.

Lastly, in view of the local context, interpretation was provided to guarantee both Basque and Spanish speakers an equal chance to participate in the deliberations. This increased the cost of the process but, crucially, helped enhance inclusion. Stakeholder interviews conducted by the OECD highlighted the importance of interpretation for the success of the process, even at an increased cost.

Implementing the Citizens’ Assembly

The Tolosa Citizen Assembly consisted of five full-day sessions on Saturdays spanning 40 hours over six weeks, from October to December 2022. After internal reflections regarding the best scheduling options in the context of Tolosa, the organisers had two options: to split the sessions between Friday evenings and Saturday mornings, or a full day on Saturday. The Steering Committee decided to hold sessions over full Saturdays. Interviews conducted by the OECD suggest that citizens preferred this arrangement over the split session option. The full-day format allowed for longer lunch breaks and different kinds of facilitated group activities during deliberation. It encouraged assembly members to dive deep into the deliberation, focusing on the topic for a full day, rather than asking them to reconnect with content they had covered the previous day.

The Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly took place over five sessions, lasting eight hours each, for a total of 40 hours of learning, deliberation, and recommendations drafting time. The first three sessions focused on learning, with ten presentations regarding emotional and mental wellbeing from experts, practitioners and interest groups.

For reference, according to OECD data, similar citizens’ juries and assemblies at the local level had an average duration of 40,18 hours and average span of just over 10 weeks (OECD, 2023[3]). The design choices made in Tolosa are in line with international good practice and translated the organisers’ commitment to provide participants with time and space necessary for the process to take place according to the highest standards, in particular the OECD Good Practice Principle which suggest participants to meet for at least four full days (OECD, 2020[2]).

Figure 3.2. Calendar of Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly

Source: Author’s own elaboration based on the schemes and visuals developed by Arantzazulab, Aztiker, Prometea and Tolosa Council.

Brief overview of the learning and orientation phases

The learning and orientation phases allow to set the tone for the rest of the process and are crucial not only to introduce citizens to the topic, but also to create an environment conducive to good collective decision making. The objective of this phase is to provide information and skills needed for participants to deliberate on the Assembly’s topic (OECD, 2020[2]).

According to international standards, at this stage participants should have access to a wide range of accurate, relevant, and accessible evidence and expertise. They should also have the chance to question speakers directly and be given the opportunity to choose some experts and advocates themselves (OECD, 2020[2]). In the case of Tolosa, the organisers decided to follow the model proposed by the NewDemocracy Foundation in Australia structured around five sessions.

Session 1 held on 22 October 2022 focused on the general context of Tolosa, the topic, and the functioning of a representative deliberative process. This session included an activity in which the Assembly members themselves agreed on how they wanted to work together and defined a set of common rules: show commitment, to be mindful of the time allocated for each activity, to focus on the question, to show creativity, to respect others’ opinions, to listen actively, to have constructive conversations, to keep an open mind and to always look out for the collective good.

Tolosa Council’s citizen participation technician Garikoitz Lekuona provided an introduction to the functioning and objectives of the process. Two experts presented a general vision of mental and emotional wellbeing, while two others gave a general overview of public-community collaboration:

• Ainara Aranberri, a lecturer in the Faculty of Psychology at the UPV/EHU and specialist in emotional regulation in children and adolescents spoke from the point of view of neuropsychology. She discussed individual well-being and emotional health, focusing on the impact that various contexts (family, friends, school/work, society) can have on the health of people of various ages.

• Iñaki Izquierdo, the director of the Sustraiak therapeutic community at the Izan Foundation and a specialist in group and systemic therapy, addressed the influence of the groups or systems in one’s environment and on individual wellbeing, especially explaining their importance in therapeutic processes.

• Eva Salaberria, technician of the Donostia City Council responsible for the Donostia Lagunkoia City Plan and a member of the working team for the conceptualisation of Community Development in the Territory, presented the general framework of public-community cooperation.

• Sorkunde Jaka, a nurse, technician in the Health Promotion Service of the Donostia City Council presented cases of collaboration with communities in the health field and introduced the main opportunities and challenges of such approaches.

The Evaluation Committee also conducted its first survey with the participants and explained its role throughout the process.

Session 2, held on 5 November 2022, discussed in more depth specific aspects of the Assembly's topic, in particular loneliness, old age, childhood and youth, gender perspective and equality in health, urban planning and health, community technology, among others.

• The assembly members heard from Fernando Fantova on loneliness, communities and local politics, Martín Züñiga who introduced a general framework around ageing, Amaia Uriarte described the reality of working with children and young people, Pepa Bojo addressed the importance of gender and equality in health. Jone Miner, head of the Urban Planning Department of Tolosa City Council, explained the interconnectedness and challenges between urban planning and health and Adriana Martínez (APTES) spoke about the work carried out in the Auzotu project and the possibilities offered by community technologies.

At the end of the second session, the organisers asked the Assembly: “What information are you missing to deliberate and write recommendations?”. The Assembly members requested to have contextual information about Tolosa to better understand what was already in place and what were the challenges currently faced by local practitioners.

Session 3 held on 19 November 2022 allowed participants to hear from civil servants and local associations and organisations.

• Maider Serra, psychologist and member of the Spanish Association against cancer and the Prevention Group of Tolosa shared her experience in the food bank and as a volunteer with people in vulnerable situations.

• Ixa Imaz from Tolosa’s Immaculate Vocational Training School explained the projects that they are conducting with a focus on students’ current mental health, and shared concerns regarding the increasing cases of suicide or suicidal thoughts.

• Garikoitz Murua, artistic director of GKo Gallery presented creative approaches that could respond to Tolosa’s mental health and wellbeing challenges.

• Mireia Roca, representative of Zu ta Ni, an association with the objective of fighting against poverty and social exclusion of the Tolosa population, was also present.

Summary of the deliberation sessions

The second stage of a representative deliberative process, and one of the main features of this democratic innovation is the deliberation itself. Having heard from experts, stakeholders, and witnesses, Assembly members can deliberate by carefully weighing the evidence, grappling with the complexity of the topic and the trade-offs involved to eventually draft their recommendations as the answer to the initial question. Through group deliberation, participants should be able to find common ground to underpin their collective recommendations to the public authority. For this, skilled facilitation is essential to ensure that every participant has a chance to speak, ideally through a mix of formats that alternate between small group and plenary discussions and activities (OECD, 2020[2]).

Session 3 held on 19 November 2022 marked the start of the deliberation phase. Assembly members were first asked to think not about fully formed recommendations, but more about the key principles and core ideas that they would like to see present in the final text. These ideas, referred to internally as “seeds” would be developed into fully-fledged ideas throughout this stage. This process yielded an initial set of five “seeds” that were then developed by exchanging in a World Café5 discussion.

Session 4 held on 3 December 2022 continued the deliberative phase of the process. At first, participants went through two exercises focused on divergence and convergence. The first was aimed at enriching the ideas they had previously discussed and the second asked participants to prioritise the newly enriched ideas for recommendations.

Collective recommendations and presenting the results to Tolosa’s elected representatives

The third stage of any representative deliberative process is the drafting of collective recommendations by assembly members. After deliberation, the Assembly must reach a consensus regarding its judgement and the recommendations they will submit to the convening public authority. Typically, this involves carefully drafting and rewording recommendations until at least 80% of the members support the proposed measures.

After two sessions dedicated to deliberation, assembly members were divided into five groups to reflect on their learnings about mental, emotional wellbeing and public-community collaboration to come up with recommendations. Grouped in plenary sessions, participants were invited to share their drafts with the rest of the assembly to enrich and further refine their ideas. This took place twice to accelerate the development of the recommendations.

Session 5 took place on 17 December 2022 and was dedicated to finalising the collective recommendations and building the narrative for the presentation of the Assembly’s work. After working in small groups and in plenary to finalise the proposals, the Assembly members voted on all the proposed recommendations. In these processes, the voting stage aims at building consensus among participants to ensure collective support to the final recommendations. In the case of Tolosa, the organisers decided to follow international standards and choose 80% as the minimum threshold for adopting recommendations.

Concretely, after individual presentations of all the recommendations, all participants expressed their level of satisfaction with every recommendation ranking them from 1 to 5 (Tolosa Council, 2023[5]). In the case of Tolosa, all the recommendations were adopted, and the voting mechanism served mainly to prioritise the order in which they were presented to Tolosa Council. Along with the recommendations, other ideas that emerged during the process have been gathered in a section titled "Seed Corner" and have been included in the report that was presented to Tolosa Council.

Table 3.2. Recommendations of the Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly

32 randomly selected residents of Tolosa spent 40 hours learning, deliberating and jointly drafting recommendations to answer the question: What can Tolosa Council do through public-community collaboration to achieve a Tolosa that improves the health and emotional wellbeing of everyone?

Recommendations	Accepted by Tolosa Council	Timeline of implementation
Inclusive architecture: Removing architectural barriers for people with reduced mobility and redesigning public spaces to be accessible to all, namely minority groups, thus improving the physical and emotional health of all citizens.	YES	2023
Getting to know the context of emotional wellbeing of the people in Tolosa: Conducting a participatory study on the emotional wellbeing of the population of the city, identifying the needs of a broad and diverse public, mapping out the existing services, activities, spaces, and initiatives, and creating new synergies and projects to cover all the expressed needs.	YES	2025-26
We all have a volunteer inside: Encouraging citizens to become volunteers in existing local NGOs, particularly to reinforce the actions towards a stronger intergenerational connection and a smoother social integration process.	YES	2024-27
Emotional wellbeing laboratory: Collective oven or vegetable garden: Creating a space for all citizens where to engage in conversations and discussions, to connect in a constructive and meaningful way, to spread open-mindedness and interest for the collective dimension of living the town.	NO
Information point to meet the needs of citizens with the services of the municipality: Creating a physical space to concentrate all the information on the activities and services of the city, where people are listened to and treated kindly and where representatives of the municipalities can meet the population and other relevant stakeholders. The information point is completed by an accessible and intuitive website and a hotline.	YES, with modifications	2024-25
Etxegazte: housing for young people: Helping landlords of empty houses to perform renovation work to rent their properties to young people at moderated rents. Creating opportunities of social renting by building new social housing primarily addressed to young people.	YES	2024
Overcoming the digital divide: Putting interactive and intuitive screens in public spaces to inform about services and activities in Tolosa, nominating referees to ease the digital interaction of the elderly with the city. All these services are co-designed with the elderly and people facing difficulties in using digital tools.	YES	2024-26
Young people, LGTBIQ+, suicide: care, education, and intervention: Educating to suicide prevention since the infancy in educational centres by implying parents, mental health professionals, and by taking action to raise awareness about the LGBTIQ+ community.	YES	2024-26
Contemporary volunteering in existing associations: tutoring, mediation, accompaniment service: Supporting the migrant community with an accompaniment path performed by paid students and graduates in social sciences. Collaborating with existing associations focused on migrants and working with people in vulnerable situations.	YES, with modifications	2025
Connecting vases – Initiatives that generate relationships and networks (without age):   Creating new forms of bonding across generations, neighbourhoods through multiple initiatives such as collaborative gardening, pet therapy, cultural events, and talent fairs.	YES, with modifications	2023-2024
Space and leisure, young people (13-18): Creating an autonomous and self-managed space for teenagers to practice artistic and cultural activities and learn more about social issues such as environment, feminism, sport, and Basque culture.	YES, with modifications	2023
Young people and gastronomic societies (18-25): Favouring the integration of young people in existing gastronomic societies to ensure the continuity of these activities.	NO
Green areas: Creating new green areas and reinforcing the existing ones to expand the spaces of sharing, intergenerational dialogue, contact with nature and animals, awareness and educational activities on environmental challenges and biodiversity.	YES	2023
Institutional trust – permanent participatory dynamics: Institutionalizing participatory mechanisms to ensure continuity and cohesion between public decisions and the community.	YES	2025-26

Source: Based on Tolosa’s response to the recommendations, https://udala.tolosa.eus/sites/default/files/RESPUESTA%20A%20LAS%20RECOMENDACIONES.pdf

Presentation to the Council

Session 5 concluded with a public event in which the Assembly members presented the recommendations to the mayor of Tolosa (Olatz Peon), other members of Tolosa Council and civil servants from the Municipality. All three political parties represented in Tolosa’s Council were present, showing the political consensus throughout the process.

When presenting the final report, participants explained the rationale for each recommendation and illustrated them through various examples. They also explained the main target populations and specific local actors they had in mind for their implementation.

Communication about the process

Transparency and communication efforts are crucial to make any representative deliberative process as open. It allows the general public (i.e., beyond the assembly members) to know and be informed about the activities of the assembly. As such, the assembly should be publicly announced before it begins, and all the materials, experts’ presentations and final reports should be shared with the public in a transparent and timely manner. Public communications ensure the connection between the mini-public (i.e. the Citizen Assembly) and the maxi-public (i.e. the broad public) and in turn can increase the legitimacy of the process ‘outcomes and decisions (OECD, 2020[2]).

In the case of Tolosa, a dedicated digital platform was set up as part of the official website of the municipality where citizens could find the schedules of the different sessions, the experts’ recorded presentations, and, once finished, the final report with the recommendations and the official response from the authority. Concerted efforts were put in making all the documentation appealing and easy to read through visual designs and plain language. Arantzazulab and Tolosa Council shared all the steps of the process on social media with both pictures and videos. Lastly, a short documentary was published online detailing the process and journey of participants with testimonies both from political representatives and assembly members. Local television and newspapers also published news about the process.

Box 3.2. Involving children in the deliberative process: an innovation from Tolosa

Tolosa Council and Arantzazulab convened a Children’s Assembly to mirror the deliberations held in Tolosa’s Citizen Assembly. 40 children were randomly selected to address the issue of mental health and wellbeing.

A student representative was randomly chosen from each classroom in the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grades among three schools to gather a total of 40 children between the ages of 8 and 12. They represented the “Children’s Assembly” of Tolosa. The civic lottery set out to give all children an opportunity and to reflect the diversity of pupils in classrooms (e.g., gender, place of residence, origins), like for the Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly.

The Children Assembly spent four Fridays learning about emotional and mental wellbeing, and to suggest ideas and recommendations for decision-makers. The first session was about emotions, and the representatives heard from Ana Ablanedo, an expert in the fields of education and pedagogy. The second was about mourning and the children representatives heard from Txaro Etxeberria and Pello Agirrezabal, officers at Herrikide School. Third session was about bullying and harassment, and the children got to hear from Baketik Foundation experts who conducted a theatre-forum dynamic to educate about the topic of school bullying. The fourth session was about loneliness, with the speakers being the Emoki Association that promotes healthy emotional management through courses, advisory, public campaigns, and didactic resources. On 25 May 2022, the Children’s Assembly held a meeting with the mayor of Tolosa and other local representatives to present the result of their work.

The objective of combining both Assemblies was to build a democratic culture beyond elections and empower young people and children to address complex social challenges, by training future citizens who are critical, free, participative, and interested in social challenges. This also addresses the right of children to express their opinions freely and be part of decisions made in relation to their classrooms and schools, and in other walks of life.

Source : https://sites.google.com/view/2022-2023-saludemocional/hola?authuser=1

Implementation of recommendations and follow up

All deliberative processes should be followed by the implementation of all or some of the recommendations by the convening public authority (OECD, 2020[2]). This is an important aspect that ensures citizens trust the process and feel empowered and respected by the public authority. In addition to responding publicly to the recommendations in a face-to-face event with participants and in a written document, the Tolosa Council organised a public meeting in November 2023 to account on the implementation status. In this meeting, Tolosa political representatives and civil servants explained the process of implementation and provided more information about the next steps. Despite a change in Tolosa's ruling party following the 2023 local elections, the political support remained unchanged, a proof of the high-level commitment. The now Mayor of Tolosa, Andu Martinez de Rituerto, opened the session with an explanation on the importance of this initiative for the Local Council and reaffirmed the municipal commitment to implement the recommendations. Members of the Tolosa Citizen Assembly were able to discuss and question the presentation directly with elected representatives. A summary of the recommendations’ follow-up is also available online. A second follow up meeting was organised in May 2024, where the Mayor and councillors updated the public on the implementation of six recommendations: 1) Inclusive architecture, 2) Etxegazte, 3) Young people, LGTBQIQ+, 4) Space and leisure, young people (13/18), 5) Green areas, 6) Institutional trust: permanent spaces for participation (see Table 3.2). Assembly members shared their reflections and ask follow-up questions to the Council. the next follow-up meeting will be held in June 2025.

Learnings from the Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly

The Tolosa Citizen Assembly can be considered as a good practice

In the design of the Tolosa Citizen Assembly, the OECD and Arantzazulab followed closely the OECD Good Practice Principles for Deliberative Processes for public decision making and other international standards. Table 3.3 shows the alignment with the OECD Principles (OECD, 2020[2]), supporting the evidence that this process can be considered as a good practice.

Table 3.3. Evaluation of the Tolosa Citizen Assembly against the OECD Good Practice Principles for Deliberative Processes for public decision making

Purpose: The objective should be outlined as a clear task, linked to a defined public problem. It is phrased neutrally as a question in plain language.	Yes. The Assembly was tasked to come up with recommendations to address a concrete problem that the community was facing. The task was phrased as: What can Tolosa Council do through public-community collaboration to achieve a Tolosa that improves the health and emotional wellbeing of everyone?
Accountability: There should be influence on public decisions. The commissioning public authority should publicly commit to responding to or acting on participants’ recommendations in a timely manner. It should monitor the implementation of all accepted recommendations with regular public progress reports.	Yes. The Tolosa Local Council was involved and committed since the early stages of the process. The process was supported by all political forces which remained even after a change of administration following elections in 2023. The Tolosa Local Council presented their responses in two sessions: the first one took place in March 2023, and the political representatives shared their response for each recommendation; the second session was in November 2023, and the council representatives presented the implementation status. In 2024 two additional reporting sessions will be held in June and October.
Transparency: The deliberative process should be announced publicly before it begins. The process design and all materials – including agendas, briefing documents, evidence submissions, audio and video recordings of those presenting evidence, the participants’ report, their recommendations (the wording of which participants should have a final say over), and the random selection methodology – should be available to the public in a timely manner. The funding source should be disclosed. The commissioning public authority’s response to the recommendations and the evaluation after the process should be publicised and have a public communication strategy.	Yes. The process was communicated widely through different channels, and all the materials were available online. In the Tolosa Council website6 there is a section dedicated to the Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly. In there all the materials, videos and information have been shared throughout the process.
Representativeness: The participants should be a microcosm of the general public. This is achieved through random sampling from which a representative selection is made, based on stratification by demographics (to ensure the group broadly matches the demographic profile of the community against census or other similar data), and sometimes by attitudinal criteria (depending on the context). Everyone should have an equal opportunity to be selected as participants. In some instances, it may be desirable to over-sample certain demographics during the random sampling stage of recruitment to help achieve representativeness.	Yes. Participants were selected via a two-stage random selection process. The 32 assembly members (and 32 reserves) were randomly selected and stratified among these four criteria: gender (2-3 groups), age (6 groups), place of residence (4 groups), and education level (5 groups).
Inclusiveness: Inclusion should be achieved by considering how to involve under-represented groups. Participation should also be encouraged and supported through remuneration, expenses, and/or providing or paying for childcare and eldercare.	Yes. Participants were remunerated (444€ for their five days and 40 hours of work). In addition, in view of the local context, Basque-Spanish interpretation was provided to guarantee both Basque and Spanish speakers an equal chance to participate in the deliberations. Taxi services were organised for participants with mobility requirements and care services were offered but none of the assembly members requested them.
Information: Participants should have access to a wide range of accurate, relevant, and accessible evidence and expertise. They should have the opportunity to hear from and question speakers that present to them, including experts and advocates chosen by the citizens themselves.	Yes. The first three sessions focused on learning, as the 32 citizens witnessed ten presentations regarding emotional and mental wellbeing from experts, practitioners and interest groups. Participants were able to request more information before the deliberation stage. The Content Committee was responsible for ensuring information was delivered in an accessible and objective manner.
Group deliberation: Participants should be able to find common ground to underpin their collective recommendations to the public authority. This entails careful and active listening, weighing and considering multiple perspectives, every participant having an opportunity to speak, a mix of formats that alternate between small group and plenary discussions and activities, and skilled facilitation	Yes. The process was designed following a participation diamond pattern, meaning having three clear moments throughout the process: divergence, emergence, and convergence. Deliberation was facilitated by experts and following international standards.
Time: Deliberation requires adequate time for participants to learn, weigh the evidence, and develop informed recommendations, due to the complexity of most policy problems. To achieve informed citizen recommendations, participants should meet for at least four full days in person, unless a shorter time frame can be justified. It is recommended to allow time for individual learning and reflection in between meetings.	Yes. The Assembly in Tolosa took place over five days and assembly members worked 40 hours, going beyond the average of 2.7 days in similar contexts (according to OECD data).
Integrity: The process should be run by an arm’s length co-ordinating team different from the commissioning public authority. The final call regarding process decisions should be with the arm’s length co-ordinators rather than the commissioning authorities. Depending on the context, there should be oversight by an advisory or monitoring board with representatives of different viewpoints.	Yes. Arantzazulab and Tolosa Council coordinated the different teams required for the implementation of the process, which included both internal (those involved in organising and running the process) and external (charged with providing the necessary information, evaluation, and oversight). The external teams were made up of the Oversight Group, the Contents Committee, and the Evaluating Committee. The Oversight Group ensured the rigor and transparency of the process.
Privacy: There should be respect for participants’ privacy to protect them from undue media attention and harassment, as well as to preserve participants’ independence, ensuring they are not bribed or lobbied by interest groups or activists. Small group discussions should be private. The identity of participants may be publicised when the process has ended, at the participants’ consent. All personal data of participants should be treated in compliance with international good practices, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).	Yes. The process ensured the protection of participants’ privacy following international standards.
Evaluation: There should be an anonymous evaluation done by participants to assess the process based on objective criteria (e.g., on quantity and diversity of information provided, amount of time devoted to learning, independence of facilitation). An internal evaluation by the co-ordination team should be conducted against the good practice principles in this report to assess what has been achieved and how to improve future practice. An independent evaluation is recommended for some deliberative processes, particularly those that take place over a significant time period. The deliberative process should also be evaluated on final outcomes and impact of implemented recommendations.	Yes. The independent evaluation of the Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly was conducted by Antonio Casado da Rocha, Lucia Pérez Prat, Luken Carbayeda Urruzola, and Alba Garmendia Castaños from the Aktiba research group in the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU). In addition, participants answered questionnaires to determine attitudinal changes about various matters throughout the process and exit interviews were conducted with participants to evaluate their deliberative experience and determine what worked well and what did not. In addition, all the organisations involved in the design and implementation of the process participated in a working session to reflect on lessons learned and possible improvements for future deliberative processes.

Source: Author’s own elaboration based on the evidence gathered by the OECD and the evaluation report of the Tolosa Citizen Assembly.

Independent evaluation of the Tolosa Citizen Assembly

Evaluating a deliberative process is important not only as a way to improve future iterations, but also to build capacities and knowledge in the region, and to contribute to building a roadmap towards institutionalisation. In Tolosa, the evaluation of the Citizens’ Assembly was conducted by Antonio Casado da Rocha, Lucia Pérez Prat, Luken Carbayeda Urruzola, and Alba Garmendia Castaños from the University of the Basque Country (Casado da Rocha et al, 2023[6]). Organisations involved in the design and implementation of the Tolosa Citizens’ Assembly, including contractors and external experts, gave input to the evaluation alongside the promoter organisations. Their main basis for the evaluation was the OECD Evaluation Guidelines for Representative Deliberative Processes (OECD, 2021[4]). These guidelines set out a three-step evaluation cycle focusing on:

• Process design integrity: Organisers frame the policy question and design a deliberative process before people gather in the room to deliberate. Evaluators will ask how these decisions were reached, whether the process has clear and legitimate objectives, whether the design choices are in line with those objectives, and whether the process design allows members enough time to learn and deliberate.

• Deliberative experience: Once the deliberative process begins, everything that happens “in the room” and “outside the room” is important. These include the breadth, diversity, and clarity of the evidence and stakeholders presented, the quality of facilitation, opportunities to speak, removal of participation barriers, as well as mitigation of undesired attention and/or attempts at interference.

• Pathways to impact: Once a deliberative process is completed and recommendations have been produced, the spotlight turns to the uptake of those recommendations by the commissioning body. Responses and justifications are expected for all recommendations. Depending on the type of deliberative process, it may be necessary to measure its uptake by the broader public (for example, when it is followed by a referendum).

The evaluation process with participants was twofold: on the one hand, participants answered questionnaires to determine attitudinal changes about various matters throughout the process. Secondly, exit interviews were conducted with participants to evaluate their deliberative experience and determine what worked well and what did not.

More specifically, the purpose of the questionnaires was to assess the impact of the process to determine any change in the reported knowledge about general aspects of the City Council and public-community collaboration, as well as in the confidence expressed towards political representatives, citizen participation, and deliberative processes. In addition, the researchers sought to explore the degree of importance towards deliberative processes expressed by participants, as well as reported changes in the acquisition of new learning. As part of the evaluation, two criteria were also considered: the gender of participants and the language usage (between Basque, a minority language, and Spanish).

The interviews allowed to gain a deeper understanding of participants’ experiences and perceptions of the process itself. Specifically, the aim was to obtain feedback about the process to understand what worked well and what did not, and what changes could be made to improve future processes. Lastly, to complement the questionnaires and interviews, the researchers were present throughout the sessions to conduct observations and they conducted six interviews with facilitators and organisers to get more insights and enrich their discussions and conclusions.

A summary of the evaluation main findings can be found in Box 3.3, and the full evaluation report can be accessed here.

Box 3.3. Independent evaluation of Tolosa’s Citizen Assembly

Evaluators found that the process design integrity was respected and conducted well, in alignment with all the necessary criteria and standards. Participants shared positive experiences “inside the room”. The researchers found some challenges regarding communication efforts and the connection between the internal deliberative experience and its larger societal impact, as not many people seemed to be aware of the process and its results. Regarding pathways to impact, the involvement of Tolosa Council in the public response to the recommendations in a timely manner shows positive signs, although further evidence in this sense will have to be gathered later as the implementation of the recommendations takes its course.

Main learnings:

Participants in the deliberative process expressed high satisfaction with the process.

Participants appreciated meeting with diverse people, quality facilitation, and feeling that their contributions were valued. As stated by two interviewees: "So, it is also very enriching because we get together people of different ages, different cultures, different thoughts" (Woman, 18 to 30 years old) and "It has been valuable for me to see all the realities that can exist" (Woman, 31 to 40 years old).

Participants also appreciated the information and skills they acquired in relation to the topic and public-community relations. "I learn and can teach others, take what I have learned to others" (Female, 51-60).

The analysis showed a high level of trust towards citizen participation and deliberative processes.

Trust increased to very high levels in both cases after the process was completed.

There was also an increase in trust towards political representatives.

There is a need for improvement in sharing information on mental health and emotional well-being resources to the public.

The information received by participating citizens should be more adequate, which could be achieved by incorporating more testimonies of local experiences and allowing more time for deliberation.

Source: Casado da Rocha, A., Pérez Prat, L., Carbayeda Urruzola, L., & Garmendia Castaños, A (2023), Informe de evaluación de la Asamblea Ciudadana de Tolosa. Tolosa ES 1.2

Positive spillover effects

In addition to the impact described in the previous sections, the Tolosa and Gipuzkoa deliberative processes impacted more than 200 individuals that were directly or indirectly involved in the design, implementation, communication and/or evaluation of the processes, as portrayed in the following table.

Table 3.4. Mapping of involvement in deliberative processes across Tolosa and Gipuzkoa

Type of involvement	Number of participants
Tolosa Local Council	3 people + political representatives
Gipuzkoa Provincial Council	4 people + political representatives
Assembly members	64 individuals
Arantzazulab	3 people
Civic lottery	4 people
Facilitation	10 people
Evaluation and research	14 people (including masters' students doing their research on the process)
Communication	6 people
International event organised in Donostia in 2022	100 people
Total	209

Source: Author’s own. This impact can support building a culture of deliberation in and out of government, increase awareness of these processes and create ambassadors and promoters for future processes.

Improving future deliberative processes by learning from Tolosa and Gipuzkoa

Building on the evaluation report as well as interviews and workshops with key stakeholders from the Basque Country involved in the process, the OECD and Arantzazulab have identified six areas of opportunity to improve future deliberative processes.

Figure 3.3. Seven learnings from Tolosa and Gipuzkoa

Source: Author’s own elaboration

1. Strengthening the connection with the maxi-public:

A recurrent challenge for deliberative processes is its isolation from the wider public, which deceases the impact of the process. The connection with the maxi-public7 enables increased awareness about the process and its outcomes and supports greater legitimacy for the whole process. It is vital to involve the wider community in the conversation to increase uptake of the results, especially when those will impact the community beyond the Assembly members. In the case of Tolosa, efforts were undertaken to communicate and involve the maxi-public as detailed under “Communication about the process” in this report. Nevertheless, both the evaluation report and stakeholders interviewed by the OECD pointed that the connection with the broader community could be improved. Public communications can be a powerful tool to amplify the Assembly and close the gap with the broader public. When communicating, public authorities should make use of diverse communication channels (podcasts, streaming channels, or social media platforms) to reach beyond the usual suspects, in particular younger demographics.

For future processes, the OECD, based on insights provided by Basque Country stakeholders, suggests the following options to improve the connection with the maxi-public:

• Transparency and communication, by using mainstream channels such as TV or radio and less traditional channels, including social media. For example, during the French Citizens’ Convention on Climate, public figures from government and academia regularly discussed the process on national radio and TV which significantly increased social awareness and French artist JR collaborated with the organisers to create an art installation with the portraits of the 150 randomly selected citizens. In addition, more efforts could be put into the communication of the results, creating different materials for diverse supports (social media, TV, print, billboards, etc.) about each step of the process and generate conversations. Some partnerships with media outlets and journalists could also be made to broaden the communication. Finally, a thorough and strategic social media campaign could make the information reach wider and younger audiences.

Decentralise the communication by encouraging self-organised events on the topic of the Assembly and sessions to present the recommendations. These additional activities should be organised in different – and less conventional – spaces, to reach different audiences. Another possible way to achieve this is by building coalitions with non-governmental actors. For instance, collaborative efforts with media, and civil society could contribute to crafting a narrative that resonates effectively to different audiences. Other interdisciplinary projects like documentaries8 or exhibitions could also be explored as an awareness tool.

2. Streamlining the selection of the topic:

Selecting the topic to be addressed by the deliberative process is an essential step. The task given to the Assembly must be clearly linked to a public problem and be relevant for both the community and the convening authority. This is not always an easy task as communities face very diverse challenges, and not all are suitable to be addressed by a deliberative process. As suggested by the OECD, deliberative processes are better suited to solve three types of issues: 1) values-based dilemmas, 2) complex problems that require trade-offs, and 3) long-term questions. In addition to finding the right problem, the organising authority must ensure that there is room to implement the recommendations of the Assembly, meaning that the problem is in their scope of action and that a solution has not yet been agreed upon.

For future processes, the OECD suggests the following options to improve the selection of the topic:

• Elaborating guidelines for public authorities on how to select an appropriate topic for a deliberative process can support future conveners’ in navigating the topic selection. These guidelines could be inspired by DemocracyNext’s Checklist for choosing and wording the Assembly question (2023[7]) or KNOCA’s Guiding principles for setting the remit of a climate assembly (KNOCA, 2022[8]).

• Involving the public in the selection of the topic can help public authorities find a pressing issue in the community, support the legitimacy of the process, and increase the awareness of the process among a wider public. Basque Country’s authorities could get inspiration from the Mostar Citizen Assembly that designed a collaborative process to define the topic (see Box 3.4).

• Creating permanent or institutionalised citizen-led bodies with an agenda-setting role where all or a percentage of members could rotate every few months. Creating a permanent body means providing a clear mandate and in some cases, it can decide the topic or suggest a list of topics to deliberate upon. For example, in Ostbelgien (Belgium) the citizens’ council, comprised of 24 rotating members, selects issues that are then deliberated by ad-hoc citizens’ panels (Ostbelgien, 2024[9]).

  Embedding the use of deliberation in the decision-making cycle as a recurrent and mainstream mechanism to co-create policies or to inform long term decisions. As public consultations are a normal way for public authorities to reach out to the public, deliberation could be integrated as part of the policy cycle, or in specific policy areas to streamline the selection of the topic. For example, the French Law on Bioethics makes deliberation or consultation mandatory for any amendment to the Law (Legifrance, 2021[10]).

Box 3.4. Co-deciding the Assembly’s topic: the Mostar Citizen Assembly

The Mostar Citizen’s Assembly — the first deliberative process in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Southeast Europe — resulted from an initiative by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

As the city administration faced many unaddressed issues, a participatory approach was adopted to select the topic. This included citizens, and representatives from civil society and the local authority. As a first step in Spring 2021, through an online poll, all Mostar residents were invited to propose a topic that fell under the competences of the city . Similar responses were grouped into 69 different topics by the contracted polling agency and then ranked by recurrence (number of times suggested). The top twenty were presented to a group of civil society who prioritise six topics then presented to the Local Council members and local authorities who in their turn selected three. The final choice was given to randomly selected citizens who when registering for the assembly could also vote for one of the three topics.

The Mostar Citizen Assembly prioritisation process

Source: Based on Kapidžić (2023), The Mostar Citizens’ Assembly: Bridging diversity and division in Bosnia and Herzegovina, OECD Participo,https://medium.com/participo/the-mostar-citizens-assembly-bridging-diversity-and-division-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina-48adc46cd00f

3. Improving the learning journey:

The learning aspect of a Citizen Assembly spans throughout the process. The information shared to participants before, during, and after the Assembly should be evidence-based and accessible to all citizens. This means that it should come from diverse sources of information instead of only a governmental, or top-down communication channels, and that the formats and languages used should be easy to read and understand.

For future processes, both the content and the format could be improved to support different learning profiles and improve accessibility. The OECD suggests the following options to improve the learning and information phase:

• Creating and curating information can be a full-time activity and requires certain expertise. Future processes could consider creating a dedicated role in the governance team, such as: content manager, scientific journalist, visual designer, information architect, etc. These new profiles would ensure that all the materials generated are accessible and appealing by using simple language, visual, and using different types of channels to communicate, among others.

• A greater emphasis could be placed on inclusive training and learning by exploring diverse sources, formats and learning techniques. For example, the learning aspect could combine traditional classroom settings, with more interactive formats including active learning and online asynchronous training. Additionally, alternative sources such as testimonies and lived experiences from local citizens could complement traditional sources like experts or professionals.

4. Involving stakeholders to ensure ownership:

The implementation of the recommendations produced by a deliberative process usually requires cross-departmental and in some cases, whole-of-society efforts. Citizens' recommendations tend to be "transdisciplinary", meaning that they do not pertain to one specific service within a public administration, but instead require the involvement of civil servants working in multiple services. External actors like civil society and research can be instrumental in providing expertise and support throughout the implementation phase. If these stakeholders are invited from the beginning, the follow-up on the implementation of the suggested recommendations can be better assured. From early stages, the organisers should involve two key groups of stakeholders:

• (1) civil servants that can be experts on the topic or that will have to implement the recommendations, and the political representatives that will sponsor and commit to the process.

• (2) stakeholders (e.g., from civil society, academia, private sector or international organisations) that have interests or expertise in the topic.

Involving public servants beyond the convening authority can help integrate the deliberative process with broader government reforms or wider public administration transformation to build synergies and catalyse a systemic change.

For future processes, involving public officials beyond the commissioning authority from the beginning could facilitate and support the follow-up and implementation of the recommendations. The OECD suggests the following options to improve the involvement of key stakeholders:

• Involving all the public institutions that have a role in the policy or issue addressed by the Assembly to be part of the governance structure, to share their expertise as part of the learning stage or by organising a dedicated session to present the recommendations before those are finalised and public. Basque Country’s authorities could get inspiration from the Milan Citizen Assembly on Climate that involved several public institutions affected by the issue of the Assembly at different moments and in particular when drafting the recommendations.

• Involving civil servants across departments in the public institution commissioning the deliberation process. They could be involved in the different phases of the design and implementation, so that they know where the recommendations are coming from, and this way will be able to respond and follow up in a more precise way. Early involvement can also increase synergies between the results of the Assembly and existing initiatives and strategies.

5. Setting the right governance structure:

The OECD recommends having one coordinating team and when necessary, an independent team to oversee the design and implementation of the process. The Tolosa process involved at least six different teams working on the coordination, design, implementation, and evaluation. A main learning for Arantzazulab is the importance of having clearly defined roles, in particular when involving different teams and groups of people and to make sure there is a fluid connection and coordination between the different groups.

For future processes, the OECD suggests dedicating more time in early stages for all the team members and groups involved in the design and implementation to get to know each other and collectively define the roles as well as expectations for their involvement. Building trust is important to facilitate the co-creation process and to ensure fluid and constructive communication. This can be supported by having regular meetings, informal gatherings, and instant messaging groups.

6. Systematizing the evaluation

Evaluation gives legitimacy to the process and helps capture lessons learned and understand the impact generated by the Assembly. It is important to involve the evaluators in all phases of the design and implementation as they are an impartial source that can help understand what works and come up with ways to improve. Evaluators should have access to all the stakeholders both from government and non-public organisations that participate in the process. In the aftermath of the process, Arantzazulab found valuable to communicate about the evaluation report both on the channels used for the process (i.e., official website), but also by organising a dedicated event to share the results, reflect on them and understand what can be changed in future processes.

7. Ensuring a thorough follow-up

The implementation of recommendations and follow up by public authorities is paramount to the success of the process. Future processes could plan the follow-up in the initial phases of design in order to provide a clear calendar early in the process. Arantzazulab found that it could be valuable to take more in consideration the administrative procedures that could impact the implementation of the recommendations such as elections, budget cycle, European regulations, etc.

References

[1] Arantzazulab (2023), Annual Report 2022, https://arantzazulab.eus/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ArantzazuLab_2022-annual-report.pdf.

[6] Casado da Rocha et al (2023), Informe de evaluación, Asamblea Ciudadana de Tolosa, https://udala.tolosa.eus/sites/default/files/Tolosa%20ES%201.2.pdf.

[7] DemocracyNext (2023), “Choosing and wording the question”, Assembling an Assembly Guide, https://www.demnext.org/uploads/1.4-Checklist-for-choosing-and-wording-the-Assembly-question.pdf.

[8] KNOCA (2022), Guiding principles for setting the remit of a climate assembly, https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/65b77644e6021e9021de8916/65dde74698f2a54c71b6e4b0_Guiding_Principles_v5.pdf.

[10] Legifrance (2021), LOI n° 2021-1017 du 2 août 2021 relative à la bioéthique (1), https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000043884384.

[3] OECD (2023), OECD Deliberative Democracy Database, https://airtable.com/appP4czQlAU1My2M3/shrX048tmQLl8yzdc/tblrttW98WGpdnX3Y/viwX5ZutDDGdDMEep?blocks=hide.

[4] OECD (2021), Evaluation Guidelines for Representative Deliberative Processes, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/10ccbfcb-en.

[2] OECD (2020), Innovative Citizen Participation and New Democratic Institutions: Catching the Deliberative Wave, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/339306da-en.

[9] Ostbelgien (2024), Citizens’ dialogue, https://pdg.be/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-5421.

[5] Tolosa Council (2023), Asamblea ciudadana de Tolosa - Recomendaciones, https://udala.tolosa.eus/sites/default/files/Asamblea_Ciudadana_de_Tolosa_Recomendaciones_es-2.pdf.

Notes

← 1.  The Gipuzkoa Provincial Council: https://www.gipuzkoa.eus/es/web/herritarrenbatzarra/que_es

← 2.  At the moment of the design phase, the Tolosa City Council was formed by 17 local councillors: 8 from the Basque Nationalist Party, 8 from EH Bildu, 1 from the Socialist Party of the Basque Country.

← 3.  According to the Spanish Statistical Institute, in 2023, Tolosa had an estimated population of 20 065 inhabitants: https://www.ine.es/jaxiT3/Datos.htm?t=2873

← 4.  The stratification was carried out using the Sortition Foundation’s algorithm.

← 5.  A world café is a structured conversational process for knowledge sharing in which groups of people discuss a topic at several small tables like those in a café. The idea is that participants get to sit at different tables, discuss the topic at hand and constantly rotate to get a sense of what the group thinks.

← 6.  See Tolosa Council website.

Content is available in Basque and Spanish

← 7.  Deliberative processes (e.g. Citizen Assemblies) are sometimes referred to as “mini-publics” and the wider public beyond the Assembly is refer to as “maxi-public”.

← 8.  The documentary of the Tolosa Citizen Assembly is a good example: