At the Strengthening Our Nation’s Democracy 2 event in DC this week, IAP2 Director John Godec was one of the 100 or so attendees. He shared a brief summary on Facebook. With his permission, I am re-posting it here:
I had to run to catch a flight immediately after our Tuesday afternoon presentation to three key, attentive Obama administration staffers. This invited recommendation was the consensus and culmination of three very long and committed days working through a variety of issues at the ‘Strengthening America’s Democracy 2′ conference in D.C., hosted by AmericaSpeaks, Everyday Democracy, Demos, and the Harvard Kennedy School Ash Institute.
Three things stand out about the past few days; one, the philosophical and rhetorical committment by the Obama administration to the work that we do, they were there till 9pm Sunday, and back on Monday and Tuesday. Two, the exceptionally high number of organizations that are engaged in some form of this work, I thought I’d heard of most like-minded organizations and I wasn’t even close. And three, how little attention has been paid to the principles, ethics and code of conduct for this field, we have a lot of work to do in this arena.
As many of you know we (IAP2) recently worked with NCDD and a handful of other organizations to develop a list of ’7 Core Principles’ (details at www.ncdd.org/pep/) that we could all agree on. This isn’t to dismiss in any way, or undermine the core values of IAP2 but rather to find that elusive consensus with our peers, on words that we can all share, live with and support. (IAP2′s core values were very influencial in this process.) That consensus list of core principles was included in the packet and background infomation for each of the attendees, but I have to tell you that it wasn’t an easy sell. I was asked to facilitate part of the small group discussions on Monday and ran into major resistance and misperception to the idea of this being a principle-based endeavor dearly on. Most groups tend to focus on ‘issues’ and ‘methods’.
I want to offer specific thanks to Sandy Heierbacher (NCDD), Leanne Nurse (USEPA) and our old friend/founder/mentor Jery Delli Priscoli (USACE IWR WWC) who participated and share many of our priorites. Without them it would have been alot lonelier.
There remains much work to be done but what was accomplished from Sunday through Tuesday is remarkable, and all in a room with nearly a hundred turf-guarding academics and other people who rarely have to listen for a living.
In the long run I’m quite confident that the group’s draft recommendation is one that will serve all of us well in the U.S. When the report is available we’ll get the details to you, but in the meantime here are the headlines of what was presented to the administration:
The 11 DRAFT Democracy Agenda Items (headlines of the recommendations) –
- Draft Statement of Principles (The preamble which will likely carry the definitions, values and ethics that we talked about)
- Democracy Skill Agenda (How to transfer knowledge and ability to do this work)
- Health of Democracy Report (The state of this imperfect union)
- National Demonstration Projects (To show the real world value of what we propose)
- Recognize and Support Engagement by Disenfranchised Communities (To ensure full inclusion)
- Institutionalize Participatory and Collaborative Governance (Embed it in federal, state and local institutions)
- Ensure Adequate Resources for Public Engagement (Paying for it)
- Adopt and Electoral Reform Agenda (Self explanatory — more later)
- Feedback on Consultation Efforts (Evaluation)
- Mechanism for Sustaining Leadership (Ensuring that this doesn’t disappear in four years)
- International Exchange (Learning from our global colleagues — citing IAP2 as a source)
I heard from some of you over the past days and appreciated your input and encouragement (thanks Max) and did my best to represent you/us — I was honored to do so.
This was a small but very important step for IAP2 and potentially, a giant leap for our field. Stay tuned.
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