Dear all
On behalf of the SUPPORT-SYSTEMS research consortium and Participedia (https://participedia.net/), we would like to invite you to a 1-hour webinar next Wednesday, March 8, 2-3PM Oslo time (Central European Time) about recent efforts to advance democratic innovations and the challenges and opportunities for strengthening citizen engagement during government decision-making.
The Zoom registration link can be found here: bit.ly/3EM3U9P
See more information below.
Best wishes
Unni
HIFA profile: Unni Gopinathan is a medical student at the University of Oslo. He is currently on a year's leave from medicine where he is working part-time assisting with research at the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services (NOKC). He is also Liaison Officer to the World Health Organization 2010/2011, for the International Federation of Medical Students Associations - www.ifmsa.org He is joint coordinator of the HIFA SUPPORT-SYSTEMS working group. https://www.hifa.org/projects/new-support-systems-how-can-decision-makin... unni.gnatha AT gmail.com
Description:
This webinar will explore recent efforts to advance democratic innovations and the challenges and opportunities for strengthening citizen engagement during government decision-making.
Dr. Fiona Anciano is an associate professor and social science researcher at the University of Western Cape and co-chair of Participedia's Democratic Accountability research cluster. She will briefly introduce Participedia-a global network and crowdsourcing platform for collating democratic innovations, with the aim to strengthen and mobilize knowledge about participatory democratic innovations throughout the world.
Further, informed by case studies of sanitation in informal settlements and informal settlement upgrading in South Africa, she will talk about the practice, and challenges, of participatory engagement in South Africa linked to local government initiatives. Her comments will be centered on the potential of citizen engagement, and the ways in which government mandated forms of participation have unintended consequences for meaningful engagement. She will also reflect on power and participation in participatory spaces.
The talk will be followed by comments by Dr. Jacinta Nzinga, who is Senior Social Scientist in health policy and systems research at the KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme.
Time (Oslo time)
2 - 2.05PM
Welcome
Unni Gopinathan
Senior Scientist, Norwegian Institute of Public Health
2.05 - 2.30PM
Participatory democracy: government frameworks and the practices and challenges of participatory engagement in South Africa
Fiona Anciano
Associate professor and social science researcher. the University of Western Cape
Co-chair, Participedia's Democratic Accountability research cluster
2.30 - 2.40
Comments
Jacinta Nzinga
Senior Social Scientist in Health Policy and Systems Research, KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme
2.40 - 3PM
Questions and discussion
