Shaping policies?

The influence of civil society organisations has exploded in the last decade. The evolving concept of “governance” has pushed European institutions and national governments to acknowledge civil society as an important player.

NGOs deliver meanwhile – side by side with banks and funds – more assistance to the world than the entire system of United Nations. It gets harder every day to ignore the power of associations, NGOs and foundations when preparing policies and laws effecting society.

But how to engage civil society in practice?

A recent review of experiences in Austria e.g. has shown, that most organisations have contact with institutions only when asking for funding (92 %) or meeting at events (56 %). Written consultations are still not very common (19 %) and only a few organisations have been personally invited to exchange views with institutions on civil society matters (10 %). This means, we are still far away from a systematic way of consultation in Austria – and I guess, this will be true in many other EU member states, too.

How-to lessons are needed

CEDAG plays a vital role in teaching and demonstrating best practice examples of CIVIL DIALOGUE, bottom-up initiatives and top-down activities. Involving civil society cannot be just a shadow of the practice of „Social Dialogue“ – it is absolutely necessary to involve as many different interest groups as possible, not just the two or three established ones! It is all about structures and proceedings: Civil Dialogue has to include broad public hearings, written consultation in the run-up of decisions and laws, easy-accessible thematic Internet-portals, experimental settings of view-exchange and most of all, concerted consultation BEFORE policies are to be implemented.

National experiences of Civil Dialogue still appear as selective points only. CEDAG’s efforts to make the best examples better known – to its members as well as to the European institutions – will take centre stage in 2010. Lessons learned will be taught in “master classes” in co-operation with the network of ENNA, which was created under CEDAG’s umbrella. With the birth of ENNA, the network of European network of national associations, civil society organisations hold a unique platform to discuss and compare cross cutting issues. By having mapped these “entrance points” to civil society in Europe, CEDAG provides the institutions a straight way into national realities and ENNA can use this direct line to European institutions vice versa.

Your experiences are up for debate.

So, don’t hesitate to get involved in our top-class exchange on citizen’s participation in policy shaping!

Christiana Weidel

The World of NGOs; Vienna/Austria
CEDAG