Guide to preparing municipal citizen participation plans

This guide helps Spanish municipalities plan citizen participation to achieve more democratic, legitimate and socially beneficial municipal management.

Citizen participation promoted by local administrations aims to incorporate residents into public decisions by promoting other ways of interacting with them and adopting decisions of public interest, based on dialogue and deliberation.

There are different levels or degrees of participation, ranging from mere information (which should always be included), to consultation, deliberation and co-decision. These must be applied depending on the goal of participation that the city council has established, and the relevant methods will be different in each case.

The purpose of this guide is to provide a methodology for large and medium-sized city councils to plan citizen participation in their localities, establishing goals and actions to be developed, so that citizen participation can be used to achieve more democratic municipal management.

Source: Gobierno Abierto Navarra
Author information:
Language: Spanish

Year of publication: 2022