The World Bank released a report in 2005 in which the authors succinctly describe five core principals of participatory decision-making that they suggested be implemented across World Bank policy and decision-making. Find these copied below. Their suggested principals could easily be applied to any governing institution. These principals applied to local, state and national governing methods, would go FAR in strengthening democracy at its core.
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Transparency and Access to Information. Effective transparency mechanisms make
information available to citizens in ways that the information can influence their political
choices. They provide complete information about activities and options
before key
decisions are made, and in local languages, culturally appropriate formats, and in ways that
are readily accessible and affordable.
•
Inclusiveness. Inclusiveness requires that all people have the opportunity to participate in
making decisions that will directly affect their lives. In particular, it involves bringing in
politically disenfranchised or marginalized groups that might ordinarily be excluded from
decision-making processes. This may include efforts to systematically identify all those
whose rights may be affected or who may bear the risks associated with the decision; and
to reach out to them and provide whatever assistance they may need to participate (e.g.
translation services, travel support, etc).
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Quality of Discourse and Deliberation. Deliberative processes allow affected people to
freely and equally express their competing interests, perspectives, and visions of the public
good. For decision-making to be based on deliberation rather than raw political power,
marginalized stakeholders must be enabled to participate on an equal basis with more
entrenched interests. Thus, where contested issues are highly technical, all participants
should have comparable access to the expertise necessary to independently challenge the
technical claims of other parties. Participants must also have the option to withhold their
consent to an agreement if their concerns are not adequately addressed.
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Fairness under Rule of Law. Fairness requires that both the process and its substantive
outcomes comport with shared principles of justice and equity.
Procedural fairness
requires that policies, rules and standards be developed and enforced in impartial and
predictable ways, and that processes of representation, decision-making and enforcement
are clear, mandatory and internally consistent.
Substantive fairness requires that the
distribution of costs, benefits and risks from policy outcomes are just and equitable.
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Accountability. Accountability implies that decision-makers must answer for their actions
and, depending on the answer, be exposed to potential sanctions. Accountability
mechanisms allow citizens to control the behavior of government officials and
representatives to whom they have delegated public power. Effective accountability
mechanisms require compliance and enforcement.
Compliance involves evaluating their
actions against clear standards that are based on publicly accepted norms. These include
both procedural standards (regarding transparency, inclusiveness, etc.) and standards for
assessing outcomes (e.g., on poverty reduction, social equity, and human rights).
Enforcement involves imposing sanctions for failing to comply with those standards.
These principles can help to structure participatory, responsive and predictable decision-making
processes that can lead to better, more sustainable development outcomes by reconciling
competing interests and visions of the public good through deliberation and negotiation. To do
so, they must be applied with an eye towards redressing the profound inequities of voice, access
and political power between different interests in development debates. If they are applied in this
way, they can be powerful tools to enhance the capacity of poor and marginalized people to influence the decisions that affect their lives. If they are not, they are unlikely to improve
outcomes very much.
