Page 84 - Enabling National Initiatives to Take Democracy Beyond Elections

82 A Project of the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) Topic selection Share the hardest problem. This should motivate your thinking whenever you seek community input to a public decision. Openly describing the task, specifically what makes it difficult, starts the conversation around how to find a solution. This is different from presenting a possible solution and only receiving feedback on that one option. Rather than asking people what services they would like, you should frame the question around the difficult task of making trade-off decisions. For example: We need to find a balance between price and service which is fair for everyone. How should we do this? Instead of: What services do you want from your water utility? The first example clearly shares the problem, balancing costs and services. The second example neglects the trade-off in favour of giving the participants a chance to wish-list what they want (ultimately not very useful information without costings).