The municipality of Anderlecht recruited Dreamocracy to advise it and support it in its effort to consult its citizens and enable them to co-construct local solutions to address pressing needs.
Mission:
This process – called Megafon – is half participatory-budget, half citizens assembly. In each neighbourhood, we recruit a representative sample of the local population by lot, with stratified sampling according to age, gender, language, and professional status. The recruitment effort has been designed to reach out to all sections of society, including the most disadvantaged, in all parts of the municipality, through activities on the street, door-to-door recruitment, mailings, and broader communications efforts.
The representative samples are then brought together over two days in each of the 7 neighbourhoods to identify and co-construct the projects that they deem appropriate to tackle their priority issues: safety on the street, cleanliness, green spaces, etc. We support the groups in drafting, with the municipality’s technicians, the necessary legal documents to submit the proposals to its elected councillors. The aim is thus for the participants to learn how the municipality functions, from beginning to end, and for citizens and city officials to work closely together in understanding their needs, constraints.
The projects are submitted to a vote by all the citizens of Anderlecht, and the municipality has set aside dedicated monies to fund all the winning projects.
Territory:
Brussels (Belgium)
External links:
Megafon was nominated as a finalist of the 2023 Innovation in Politics Awards.
