2022: Building new pathways out of the democracy and climate crises
/
2022 was a year of both growing crises and inspiring movements for change. At People Powered, we confronted the global climate and democracy crises with innovative new programs. Below we share our five big 2022 contributions to building a more inclusive, equitable and democratic future, in which people have more power to make the decisions that affect their lives.
Can you help grow this work by making an end-of-year donation?
1) We helped 40 cities accelerate climate democracy.
We launched our first accelerator program, Climate Democracy Action, to kickstart the work of local governments to prevent and mitigate the climate crisis. With our partners the World Resources Institute and FIMA, we welcomed 40 local leaders into a comprehensive training and support program, to help them launch initiatives that engage residents in deciding climate policies and spending.
Locations and number of participants in the first Climate Democracy Action cohort
2) We developed comprehensive guidance and platform ratings for digital democracy.
Our guide and ratings of digital participation platforms help organizations and governments choose the best platform for their context and implement it most effectively. With support from mySociety, we developed in-depth case studies to illustrate innovative new ways to engage people in more meaningful ways online.
China’s Participation Center, a People Powered member, developed a WeChat “mini app” to engage more than 3 million people in participatory budgeting in Chengdu city.
One of the digital participation platform scorecards.
3) We launched a global initiative to make participatory and deliberative democracy more inclusive.
Building Inclusive Democracy brings together 13 organizations from Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America to identify best practices for meaningful inclusion of youth, women and displaced people in participatory programs. We’re turning this bottom-up expertise into global training and resources.
4) We facilitated Global South leadership and problem-solving.
We helped our Colombian member Extituto de Política Abierta launch Demo.Reset, a new program led by and for groups in Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia, India and Eastern Europe, to co-create deliberative democracy tools and solutions. We also launched our first two regional hubs, in Francophone Africa and in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans, a project that our members voted to fund in our annual participatory planning process.
One of the cross-continental design teams of Demo.Reset.
5) We made essential knowledge and data more accessible.
We released a research brief that synthesizes global research on the short- and long-term impacts of participatory budgeting. We worked with over 60 participation experts around the world to integrate research and best practices into a groundbreaking Participation Playbook, an interactive online tool for designing participatory programs. And we’re piloting the beta version of the playbook in the Climate Democracy Action program, to prepare it for public release in 2023.
One of the featured findings in our research brief on PB impacts
What’s next in 2023? Watch for a preview next week!
Our work is made possible by our members and staff around the world, with the support of our funders and individual donors. Will you join them?
