Page 112 - Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections

110 A Project of the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) What if they need longer? It is not uncommon that, at the end of a project, the participants ask for more time. This happens when participants feel a significant commitment to the quality of their output but have run out of available time. Adding additional sessions to a project can be difficult because of the inflexibility of deadlines. One approach is to ensure that the participants form basic recommendations on the most crucial aspects of their remit before the close of the second last scheduled session. This then gives them the ability to schedule another session that suits as many people as possible (while not being too far disjointed from the final session). It is crucial that as many people attend additional sessions as possible, and that this is noted alongside any additional recommendations because it is a clear differentiation in the process for how the two sets of recommendations are made. An approach here can be to schedule two short sessions with the aim of the whole group attending at least one of the two meetings. That a group will need more time becomes clear at the end of the second last meeting. If the group is not close to draft recommendations or they are stuck on finding agreement on a core issue, then preparation should be made for both additional sessions and focus on resolving at least core recommendations by the end of the final scheduled session. There are different forms of deliberation that can reduce the time frame from start to finish. These processes, like Deliberative Polls, manage a trade- off between the added time in the room and the efficiency of the process. Different contexts will sometimes make this preferable, such as when the decision must be made quickly and where there is widespread agreement that the pool of potential answers is limited. In this case, some deliberation is better than none. Time should not be compromised on. Processes and decisions that are designed around long periods of in-person deliberation heavily require the full time commitment. Reducing the time allowed leads to rushed decisions and undermines the trust building between government and the participants.