The newDemocracy Foundation (nDF) has published the Democracy Beyond Elections handbook – a guide to doing democracy differently. MosaicLab was honoured to be one of the contributors to this rich, deliberative democracy resource.
We talked about the launch of this project here earlier in the year – when it had just been announced that the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) had appointed nDF to undertake a pioneer project centred around doing democracy differently.
The handbook, which is one element of this broader project, has now been brought to life. It’s a practical, actionable guide for organisations and decision makers looking to make trusted, democratic decisions around ‘politically tough’ issues. It steps through the ‘citizens’ assembly’ model, covering both design and delivery, and can be applied to different contexts. It covers everything from red flags to topic selection and project delivery steps to core principles.
While the handbook has been designed with an international audience in mind, the resource is also very much applicable in Australia, where a number of deliberative democracy processes have been delivered, including several nDF processes that MosaicLab has facilitated such as the Democracy in Geelong (Geelong Citizens’ Jury) project and the Yarra Valley Water Citizens’ Jury.
The project also includes funding for three pilot projects that will demonstrate deliberative processes being run in different contexts and show how they can work in practice. The first of these is in Fortaleza, Brazil with Delibera Brasil. MosaicLab was honoured to contribute to the handbook and provide some support (from Australia) to the Brazil team alongside nDF.
nDF is encouraging people to share the news and tell other’s about the project – particularly political representatives. You can learn more and stay up to date by keeping an eye on the nDF project page.