Category Archives: WWViews on Oceans and Seas

Citizen participation initiative, World Wide Views, Hosts UN Side Event

Next World Wide Views moves ahead

by Sean Gunther & Kimberly Quach

The United Nations (UN) often feels like a lofty organization, removed from ordinary citizens. World Wide Views (WWViews) seeks to change this by constructing citizen forums for complex global issues. During the first UN Ocean Conference, WWViews hosted a side event at the German Permanent Mission. Representatives from local and national civil society organizations, as well as the French, German, and Belizean governments spoke at length. Together, the participants started a push for citizen voices in ocean policy.

Mahmud Farooque, a lead organizer of the event, expressed the need for WWViews. “There is a democratic gap between citizen and policy maker,” he said. “We want to know how citizen participation can become a key political priority for now and for the future.”

WWViews is a global citizen participation initiative that gives decision-makers unique insight into public opinion. Complex governance issues are debated and negotiated worldwide. During a WWViews conference, participants discuss relevant policy questions in a collaborative format. There have been three previous World Wide Views: global warming (4000 citizens in 38 countries), biodiversity (3000 citizens in 25 countries), and climate and energy (10000 citizens in 76 countries). This event is the beginning of their next topic, oceans and seas.

Monika Ollig, Coordinator of Public Participation in Environment, Building, and Urban Development Policy at the German Federal Ministry for the Environment endorsed the initiative at the event.

“This process made it possible for the voice of German citizens to be heard in German decision-making processes. It was also good that the dialogues took place ahead of the international negotiations thus making it possible to incorporate the results into the preliminary negotiations.”

This event comes in the wake of the first ever UN Ocean Conference – a five-day global forum for civil society, government, and NGO representatives to discuss world ocean policy. Delegates at the conference debated solutions to the species loss, acidification, and warming of world oceans, and produced a Call to Action titled, “Our Ocean, Our Future.”

In its Call for Action, the UN “stresses the need for an integrated, interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach as well as enhanced cooperation, coordination, and policy outcome coherence, at all levels.” Nowhere in the report, however, are “citizen participation” efforts mentioned.

The long-term goal of World Wide Views is the integration of “citizen participation” in the concept of sustainable development. Without “citizen participation” explicitly mentioned in UN language, the UN has no mandate to specifically include citizen choice in their decision-making processes.

This will be an uphill battle, and will require considerable effort and support from governments, civil society organizations, and critical stakeholders. As institutions committed and open to diverse viewpoints, ECAST and the World Wide Views organizers would appreciate hearing your ideas and feedback about this project and its goals: from worlds’ oceans, to sustainable, to community outreach programs. Our vital, remaining question is: how citizen participation efforts can be organized; funded; and become a key political priority.

Please consider contacting any of the lead organizers below.

Bjorn Bedsted

Global Coordinator of WWViews and Head of DBT International

bb@tekno.dk

+45 3078 5171

Yves Mathieu

Director, Missions Publiques

Yves.mathieu@missionspubliques.com

+33 6746 46117

Lorraine Brindel-Schild

Fundraising and Project Development Manager, Climate Analytics

Lorraine.brindel@climateanalytics.org

+49 (0)30 259 22 95-21

Mahmud Farooque

Associate Director, Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes (CSPO)

Mahmud.farooque@asu.edu

(202) 446 – 0397

World Wide Views on Oceans & Seas: Citizen Participation and SDG14

DESCRIPTION

Join the World Wide Views on Oceans and Seas side event at the U.N. Oceans Conference! Learn about the role of citizen engagement in implementing sustainable development goal 14 (SDG 14).

This side event will begin with a welcome message from Monika Ollig from the Public Participation division of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment and will feature brief remarks from. Ann France Didier, Coordinator of SDG-14 for France, H.E. Janine Coye Felson, Deputy Permanent Representative of Belize to the UN, Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson of Conservation International, Calla Allison of MPA Collaborative Network, and Christopher Chin from the Center for Oceanic Awareness, Research and Education. Afterward, we will hold a small group discussion on the process of citizen engagement in SDG 14 and conclude with recommended actions and next steps.

Our questions include:

How can citizen participation in the implementation of SDG 14 be organized (where, when, and how)?
How can citizen participation in the implementation of SDG 14 become a key political priority at the global and national level, and how can it be promoted?
What kinds of funding mechanisms can support citizen participation in the implementation of SDG 14?

Light snacks and refreshments will be offered at the beginning of the event.

DATE AND TIME

Fri, June 9, 2017 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT

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LOCATION

Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations, 871 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017

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Agenda WWViews Side Event – Agenda – Final

What is World Wide Views (WWViews)?

The WWViews method was developed by the Danish Board of Technology (DBT) Foundation to close the growing gap between citizens and policymakers. It has been used in three previous citizen engagement projects on global warming (2009), biodiversity (2012), and climate and energy (2015). The most recent WWViews on Climate and Energy 2015, in which 76 countries and 10,000 lay citizens participated in 97 consultations, provided public input to the COP21 meeting in Paris. Using this WWViews method, we will be discussing how citizen engagement can be utilized in achieving the SDG 14 targets.

The WWViews Oceans and Seas team consists of the Danish Board of Technology (the WWViews global coordinators), France’s Missions Publiques, the Expert and Citizen Assessment of Technology (ECAST) network in the United States, and Germany’s Climate Analytics.

Developing — World Wide Views on Oceans and Seas

A global citizen consultation

Conserving and sustainably using the oceans is a top priority of the United Nations and its new Sustainable Development Goals. Beginning with a high-level UN Conference on Oceans and Seas in June 2017, the international community will convene a series of meetings to address challenges confronting the ocean system and its governance, including overfishing, pollution, climate change, acidification, and biodiversity. In advance of these meetings, the World Wide Views Alliance will host a global citizen consultation to inform these discussions with the views and values of lay citizens from around the world. The Expert & Citizen Assessment of Science & Technology (ECAST) network, headed by Arizona State University, will coordinate citizen consultations in at least 15 countries in North and South America and the Caribbean.

What is World Wide Views?

WWViews is a method of citizen consultation that closes a widening gap between international policymaking and ordinary citizens. Through structured, daylong, public deliberations, WWViews raises awareness of critical issues, promotes citizen participation in global governance, and offers an effective method by which citizen voices can be heard at the national and international levels. Citizen perspectives are a necessary but often-inaccessible input for robust decision making, as demonstrated in WWViews and ongoing projects with NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and other US agencies.

WWViews organized public deliberations on global warming (2009), biodiversity (2012), and climate and energy (2015), providing citizen input to landmark international conferences. The ECAST network has been a key partner for all of these programs. After each worldwide consultation, the method has been refined in order to increase its relevance and impact. As a result, WWViews is becoming a vital component of the international decision-making process, with tangible policy outcomes.

How can you get involved?

For the upcoming WWViews on Oceans and Seas, the ASU-led ECAST network will coordinate the consultations for the Americas, in partnership with France’s Missions Publiques and the Global Coordinator of WWViews, the Danish Board of Technology Foundation. ECAST, which brings together academia, informal science education, and nonpartisan policy analysis, has been at the forefront of innovative public engagement in the United States. By combining ECAST’s experienced network with new and existing WWViews partners throughout the Americas, we will leverage a hemispheric network capable of engaging citizens on critical topics.

In order to build on the successes of the previous WWViews and grow the network of national and regional partners in the Americas, ECAST seeks support for its coordinating responsibilities. Critical areas of support include forum materials development, facilitator training, site hosting, participant recruitment, results analysis and dissemination. Although each of these tasks is relatively modest in scale, the intended outcomes—for improved citizen engagement, democratic deliberation, science and technology policy, and international policymaking—will be of enormous benefit to the billions of people who depend on the sea as a vital resource.