URBiNAT practices taken into account in UN Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making
Meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters
[October] As recently announced, Isabel Ferreira, researcher at the Centre for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra and member of the co-coordination team of the URBiNAT project, participated in the 10th Meeting of the Task Force on Public Participation in Decision-making under the Aarhus Convention, on 10 & 11 October 2022 in Geneva.
URBiNAT’s participation in this event was not only a great chance to learn about the dedicated work of the United Nations regarding public participation, but also to share URBiNAT’s experience at UN level.
Participants included delegates from the UN State Members (including the Republic of Moldava, Serbia, Bosnia, Georgia, France, Italy, Azerbaijan, Guinea Bissau, Austria, Armenia, Sweden, Slovenia, Kirgizstan, Kazakhstan), but also members from NGOs and European consortiums (like URBiNAT).
Isabel’s presentation “URBiNAT: co-creation and co-governance approaches for inclusive, nature-based solutions” focused on public participation in decision-making in urban development processes—and in particular the planning of healthy corridors and nature-based solutions—in the framework of the URBiNAT project.
She used the example of Porto to illustrate the participation of citizens, researchers, local organizations and municipal stakeholders in the living lab of three social neighborhood areas.
The meeting offered the opportunity to gather different national experiences from UN member states in dialogue with organizations and projects operating at a more local level.
The participants shared very different experiences in terms of understanding and maturity of the participation in decision-making processes, revealing diverse cultures of participation.
Delegates and participants congratulated the URBiNAT approaches and expressed their interest in following the project’s results. The URBiNAT experience has been integrated in the official minutes of the meeting.
The Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra was invited to submit the policy brief presented at the meeting to the Clearing House data base of good practice, which is currently being updated.
