Cedos continues to work on strengthening the capacity of communities, improving participatory practices and the interaction of community members with each other and with the authorities.

Our new project is dedicated to promoting informal participatory practices in communities. Unlike the more common formal methods of civic engagement, which are usually based on fairly clear, often regimented procedures, the idea behind informal methods is to engage in a more sensitive and less bureaucratic interaction, creating and maintaining a dialogue between the authorities and civil society. Such interaction makes it possible to take better account of the opinions and needs of different categories of residents. In this way, informal participation practices ultimately contribute to solving community problems in a more equitable way and make it possible to create new common practices in the community.

In August 2024, Cedos launched the “Civic Participation Lab” project. Its aim is to support the development of effective informal practices of public participation in local development, to disseminate knowledge about such practices and to enable better interaction between local government representatives, activists, civil society organisations and community residents.

As part of the “Civic Participation Lab” project, Cedos will work with 10 hromadas, selected on a competitive basis, to help them develop concepts for selected public spaces and improve interaction between local authorities and residents. A separate product will describe the methodology of such processes. In addition, Cedos will organise a 4-day Practical School for Public Participation, a conference on civic engagement at local level and publish 12 feature articles, 10 podcast episodes and 10 videos.

This project was made possible by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the generous support of the American people through the USAID HOVERLA Project. The content of this project does not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

Please contact us if you have any questions or are interested in this project.