Bungeni Parliamentary and Legislative Information System

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The original version of this entry first appeared on Vitalizing Democracy in 2010 and was a contestant for the 2011 Reinhard Mohn Prize. It was originally submitted by Christian Kreutz . Bungeni aims at making Parliaments more open and accessible to citizens. Bungeni is the Kiswahili word for "inside Parliament"...

Kuna ACT Study Circles (Alliance for a Cohesive Community Team)

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The original team of Kuna ACT and all supporters knew we needed a vehicle to provide an infrastructure of collaborative discussion providing a place where citizens could gain ownership of the issues and discover and maintain common ground, creating a greater desire and ability to work together to solve local issues. We needed a community information gathering source, a place where the community gets a voice, a neutral setting facilitated by a non-profit, non-political, non-partisan group. Citizens needed a voice before decisions were made. Until now, the only voice came from people showing up at meetings furious about a controversial issue or decisions made without input. Our plan was to implement grass roots decision making, where study circle participants knew their ideas would reach the agencies that requested the information to be implemented into public policy. Our goal was not a single event, but to be persistent in changing the way decisions were and are made in Kuna through a perpetual system webbed into the lifeblood of the Kuna Community.

Canada’s World

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The original version of this case study first appeared on Vitalizing Democracy in 2010 and was a contestant for the 2011 Reinhard Mohn Prize. It was originally submitted by Jacquie Dale.

Canada’s World was a three-year citizens’ dialogue focused on advancing a new vision for Canadian international policy. The goals of the initiative were two-fold: