This policy brief explores the challenges and innovative opportunities for institutionalising participatory processes within municipal contexts. Specifically, we report on the creation of municipal committees, a proposal framed within the EU-funded project URBiNAT aimed at co-creating healthy corridors made up of a combination of nature-based solutions (NBS). The proposed committees aim to consolidate citizens’ engagement in the process of co-creating NBS, by offering opportunities for: cooperation and co-production between citizens, public authorities
and stakeholders; building consensus through possibilities to influence, negotiate and deliberate on decisions; handling emerging conflicts, dissensus and disagreement.

Author(s): Moniz, Gonçalo Canto Ferreira, Isabel
Published in: Rassegna di Architettura e Urbanistica,, Issue 158, 2019, ISSN 0392-8608
Publisher: Sapienza, University of Rome
DOI: 10.1400/273027

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The European Commission is promoting an inclusive urban regeneration, in the frame of the Smart and Sustainable cities, that should integrate the environmental approach, through the nature-based solutions (nbs), and the social approach, through the co-creation process. More than research projects, the financing programs, as H2020, are supporting innovation actions that move the research from the universities to the communities, creating living labs. These laboratories are holders, municipality technicians, companies and researchers in order to develop together solutions for new urban challenges.

Journal Parcerias Estratégicas - v.25 - n.50 - junho de 2020 - Edição especial

Transformations around modes of production have changed the way citizens, users and consumers are considered and recognized in the processes of cocreation and co-production. However, at the same time that the spaces for networking and sharing are expanding, new challenges arise for co-production and co-government. In development since 2018, the URBiNAT project foresees the implementation of healthy corridors in 3 European cities. In these cities there are active living labs to promote processes of active involvement of citizens in the design and implementation of corridors through the catalogue of nature-based solutions (NBS). This paper aims to focus on the current understanding about participation and knowledge and how they operate at the level of URBiNAT strategies; and reflect on how a European project experience can dialogue with other experiences and contexts such as Brazil. It is an inclusive urban regeneration project centered on people, which tries out new approaches and new combinations of traditional approaches, and as inherent in its nature, prioritizes the specific aspects of its path.

This deliverable identifies the actors involved in participation and the conditions needed for active, positive and ethically sound participation. In doing so, the deliverable takes stock of the existing methods and tools for participation being used and likely to be used in the future. Furthermore, it gathers insights for strategic design and usage of participatory solutions and relevant digital tools in support of NBS uptake. This stocktaking activity provides URBiNAT with insight as to the state-of-art regarding the use of relevant participatory solutions, including digital technologies and tools, applied by stakeholders in the frontrunner and follower cities; their ease of use; services provided; usage levels and drawbacks associated with them. The objective is to have a picture of the existing participatory culture in the frontrunner and follower cities. In addition, the deliverable will begin to shed some light on actual and potential collaboration among stakeholders to enhance citizen participation in local communities in frontrunner and follower cities. This will be based on a generic model for the assessment of existing participatory culture, as well as engaging part of URBiNAT's portfolio of participatory solutions for application in the cities.

Deliverable 3.2 (D3.2) is the second deliverable of work package 3 (WP3) on citizens’ engagement. D3.1, submitted in month 12 of the project, reported on the strategic design, use of participatory solutions and relevant digital tools in support of the uptake of n ature-based solutions ( NBS). D3.2 reports on the advancements of the URBiNAT project in tailoring participatory methods and tools to city cultures for the co-design and co-implementation of NBS processes.

The approach we took in preparing this deliverable was based on the understanding, that the responsible team preparing and organising the participatory design process of the URBINAT project, needed a manual in toolkit format so that the internal dissemination of good practices and agreed tool descriptions could be as effective as possible. Furthermore, it would be the guiding principles and practices of each of the cities in URBiNAT in their participatory design processes. From the beginning, we want to signal that the process will be open to customization, adaptation and parameterization by the local city teams according to their contexts, experiences, knowledge and willingness to experiment / innovate in the way they involve and create commitments with their stakeholders, citizens and other resources engaged in the territory. Prior to gathering an information report, incl. an evaluation of how the participatory design processes are conducted in cities, we understand that it is necessary to present a guide / toolkit describing the general process itself.

The “Healthy corridor Concept” aims to establish the general framework of the healthy corridor urban plan (part 1) and present its application in the three front runners by the local task force: Porto (part 2), Sofia (part 3), Nantes (part 4). The general framework redefines the concepts, principles and the methodologies related with the healthy corridor urban plan, taking in consideration previous deliverables and integrating the experience acquired in the cities during the co-creation process

This deliverable is dedicated to the coimplementation strategy of the healthy corridors in the three frontrunner cities in the frame of task 46 Firstly the Healthy Corridor HC concept D42 will be developed as an urban project by the city urban planning office Porto Nantes and Sofia and by the local partner ICETACIBIO CNRSIRSTV UASG with the participation of the citizens The cities will contract consultants to support the project if needed and will contract facilitators to develop the codesign process The horizontal partners that developed the HC Concept task 44 and its NBS task 42 will coordinate the urban project Secondly the urban project task 24 and 45 will be built by the municipality of Porto Nantes and Sofia that will promote the public tenders to select private construction companies The municipality will supervise the HC construction with the support of the local partner The local partner will support the costs related to the development and supervision of the HC urban project The technological NBS will be built by IAAC Cities will provide the infrastructures necessary to its implementation The deliverable will be an urban project and the construction of the HC

Open meetings facilitated and organized in small groups in which participants are invited to debate a specific thematic. This method allows to explore and develop bottom-up and grassroots community development skills for people within their own communities. Participants can identify their most pressing social determinants, with positive and negative aspects of their environment, bringing social justice and environmental sustainability. The method also assists people to gain a clearer understanding of the principles of community development and community capacity building, increasing awareness and understanding of the main themes, terms and definitions.

Tool for participatory decision-making improvement. It promotes an organized way of collecting ongoing or recurring information by residents, to be used by local governments and civil society, for planning, budgeting, and implementing local development programs, as well as for monitoring and evaluating their performance. Its activities cover community mapping, mobilization, capacity building, and information dissemination. Its benefits include:
- identification of problems and solutions in areas with fragmentation of needs and different vulnerable groups, which make it difficult to provide standardized solutions
- collective elaboration of simple and intuitive indicators
- contrast to lack of transparency and clientelism
- creation of relations of mutual trust between citizens and public officials
- awareness about policy-making helping citizens to understand the constraints of public action.

Methodological tool in participatory planning and community development, it makes visible the ways that local cultural assets, stories, practices, relationships, memories, and rituals constitute places as meaningful locations.
Process of collecting, recording, analyzing and synthesizing information to describe the cultural resources, networks, links and patterns of usage of a given community or group, also strategically used to bring stakeholders into conversation.
Flexible according to the objectives, purpose and what one wants to map. E.g. facilities, organizations, stories of places, historical sites, for the past (memories and landmarks) or for the future (aspirational mapping), for the community or for outsiders.
It can be combined with approaches such as footprint of women (gender), forbidden cities (safety), asset-based community development (community assets), arts.

Methodology based on theatre techniques, games and exercises, involving the community in analyzing and discussing problems, provoking awareness and citizen participation. A Joker (facilitator) guides a group of participants to debate on individual oppressions/ problems having a collective impact, from which they choose topic(s) to be performed. The dynamic is ideally built during 10-12 workshops (4-6 months), both to prepare a presentation and to train participants to conduct workshops. A format of 1 workshop (2-4 days) is possible to just prepare the performance. After participants present the performance to a local audience, the Joker urges for a debate, which is followed by a second performance where the “spect-actors” of the audience can introduce changes, playing new actions and exploring new strategies for individual and collective action, as active participants of a role play.

Empowerment evaluation is the use of evaluation concepts, techniques, and findings to foster improvement and self- determination.
Program participants conduct their own evaluations, with the support of an outside evaluator and an additional facilitator, in workshops to complete the following steps: a) developing a mission; b) taking stock where the program stands; c) planning for the future.
Participants determine the type of evidence required to document and monitor progress. Subsequent evaluations, such as interviews and surveys, test whether strategies are working to allow mid-course corrections. Another formal assessment of activities allows comparison with the previous ratings of key activities. All results are recorded in accessible documents to be used as references, baseline and data point for planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the co-creation process.