Citizen Engagement in Practice - Informing Digital Futures: Strategies for Citizen Engagement - page 74

good practice in engagement/participation, giving rise to positive outcomes
and significant benefits for the individuals and communities involved. The
Foundation has received a “ Best Practices ” award from the United Nations
Secretariat, e-ASEAN, and UNESCO (Bangkok) (Jhai Foundation n.d.).
4.5 Conclusions
The cases considered in this chapter reveal a wide variety of practice in
existing citizen engagement and participation projects. There is great di-
versity in every respect, from the objectives of the engagement (analysing
information needs, improving services, and informing/influencing govern-
ment policy) to the nature of the impact of the various initiatives. Initiatives
take place in both developed and developing countries, and involve a wide
range of people differing on numerous attributes, including levels of edu-
cation, trades and professions, social position and economic standing,
background and experience. The exponential growth of interest, research
and experience in these topics is demonstrated by the scale of an interna-
tional conference on Engaging Communities held in August 2005. The
conference attracted 400 papers and delegates from 26 countries. When
these are published, the content of the papers will represent a rich resource
and will merit analysis on the basis of the framework developed in this
topic.
Although the processes of citizen participation are often not fully docu-
mented, the progress and successes reported by the projects described here
could not have been achieved without the active cooperation and support
of participants. Despite the immense diversity of the cases examined,
common themes emerge. The next chapter continues with the reporting of
case material, this time with a specific focus upon the engagement of citi-
zens who are regarded as marginalized or in danger of social exclusion.
Key issues and implications arising from all of the 20 examples are ana-
lysed in Chapter 6 to reveal the generic processes and benefits of citizen
engagement.
References
Al-Kodmany K (1999) Using visualization techniques for enhancing public par-
ticipation in planning and design: process, implementation and evaluation.
Landscape and Urban Planning, 45. Elsevier, pp 37-45.
America Speaks (n.d). Home Page. http://www.americaspeaks.org/.