2021 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"
15th Edition 2021
Supports are subject to the following rules:
- You can support up to 5 proposals.
Planning and Transforming Iztapalapa
The "Planning and Transforming Iztapalapa" programme seeks to strengthen the organisational capacities of communities to manage their present and future, as well as to contribute to the construction of citizenship and democratic, participatory, supportive and inclusive governance in Iztapalapa. It proposes democratising the exercise of government and building a new government-citizen relationship in decision-making in the public sphere, in the implementation of participatory actions and in the planning of social and urban development hand in hand with the communities. This initiative has had an impact in advancing the mainstreaming of participatory democracy and citizen participation in other areas and actions of government, opening a path that has been little explored in the governmental sphere to stimulate citizen participation in the improvement of living conditions and coexistence in the communities of Iztapalapa and in the full exercise of their rights.
The programme has strengthened citizen capacities for the construction of a critical, active, participatory, democratic and transformative citizenship, through the implementation of planning, training and action processes, with participatory and creative methodologies incorporating traditions, art and culture; processes that favour local community development through horizontal dialogue, reflection, analysis and collective formulation of proposals, consultation, co-management and self-management of strategies and priority projects for the community.
It has managed to promote community organisation and cohesion through the formation of Planning Collectives and the active involvement of Community Assemblies in the construction of Local Agendas for Community Development that contain the community's feelings, imagination, vision, strategies, projects with social and urban impact, priority actions and collective commitments, thus promoting the exercise of the Right to the City in 48 neighbourhoods of Iztapalapa, with a total of nearly 400,000 inhabitants.
It has favoured the culture of citizen participation and the exercise of the right to take part in government decisions by creating new spaces and mechanisms of participatory democracy such as the Planning Collectives, which go beyond formal citizenship and traditional representation, including all people without discrimination in the design of their present and future, as well as in the implementation of transformative projects and actions with short, medium and long term impacts that can be seen in the number and diversity of projects promoted by the Collectives and carried out with the involvement of the inhabitants of the neighbourhoods.
These projects - 367 so far - now cover 12 thematic areas: economic development (creation of cooperatives and business incubators, censuses of formal and informal economic activities, virtual spaces for the exchange of goods or the promotion of local businesses); social development (women's listening circles, workshops on self-esteem, autonomy and empowerment of women); culture (recovery of historical memory, screening of documentaries, community archives and community museums); communication (neighbourhood media networks and local circulation); urban projects (participatory murals, co-design and recovery of public spaces such as UTOPIAS, ludicalles and squares of indigenous peoples, land-use plans); environment (creation of urban gardens, compost bins, pollination gardens, reforestation, rainwater harvesting). It is worth noting here that the projects proposed to strengthen citizen participation have the highest percentage (34%) and revolve around strengthening citizen information, training, organisation and representation, re-invigorating community assemblies, recovering tequios (mutual aid), improving management, co-management and self-management capacities.
The government has learned to work with citizen participation and to value its relevance, which also represents the enrichment of representative democracy and a profound questioning of the bureaucratic and technocratic culture, through exercises in participatory democracy, deepening the democratisation of social relations within communities, of the government-citizen relationship and of public decision-making.
This proposal has been accepted because:
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PARA LA PRIMERA ALCALDÍA DE IZTAPALAPA SE SEGUIRÁ TRABAJANDO EN TODO MOMENTO Y EXCELENTE PROPUESTA.. VAMOS CON TODO!!!
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