Page 162 - Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections

160 A Project of the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) Step 9: Your role when things are over Closing the loop is an important part of all processes. You now have an informed group of people who are valuable resources in sharing decisions with the community and raising awareness of what exactly government does. This means you should regularly check in with them on implementation of their recommendations and get their feedback on your progress. The most critical step is to provide a detailed written response to each recommendation explaining what you will do, and when. Take a look at the examples on the following pages – these are very good examples of clear responses by a government closing the loop with participants. You may even want to establish an ‘alumni’ group that allows participants of the different deliberations you operate to stay in touch. Examples of this include one called “I deliberated – now what?” is an exclusive group open only to those who have been involved in deliberative engagement processes facilitated by the Australian engagement team MosaicLab.