Page 168 - Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections

166 A Project of the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) Not everything needs facilitation. Surveys, online and other forms of engagement are all processes that are self-explanatory. You will benefit from having a facilitation team help you through their production if the output of your survey is an input for a longer deliberation. Town-hall meetings benefit heavily from facilitation. The facilitator’s role here is to keep the meeting on track for the goals originally set out (See Chapter 4.2). Without a facilitator, these types of meetings can become unproductive or create their own new problems. In a citizens’ assembly style format, where the emphasis is on helping groups jointly agree and complete tasks, this is even more important. This is the focus of this section. Facilitation is one of the single most important aspects of any deliberative process. It involves the management of everything that happens “inside the room”, group cohesion, assistance with thinking critically (rather than a simple exchange of opinions)and task completion. The facilitation team are responsible for taking a selection of everyday people with generally only a basic understanding about a topic, through a shared citizen-led learning experience, to making decisions together that will shape the future of their community, and to do so in a neutral, non-leading way. It’s as hard as it sounds. There are many important factors to consider here.