De Innovation in Democracy Conference: An overview of the last congress day from Arantzazu

The last day of the Conference on Innovation in Democracy has arrived. On the third day, the conference offered the opportunity to delve deeper into the design for innovation in democracy and to get to know different designs and projects. Deliberative democracy, the activation of society and the transformation of governments were the main themes of this last day. 

We started with challenge-based innovation by Ingrid Burkett, from the Griffith Centre for Systemic Innovation in Australia. Ingrid pointed out the need to add a new type of democracy. It is a democracy about the democratisation of innovation, which she has called generative democracy.  

In the second presentation, the managing director of Arantzazulab, Naiara Goia, reflected on ‘Deliberative Democracy, Social Activation and Transformation of Governments’. Among other things, she stressed in his speech that when Arantzazulab wanted to promote the citizens’ assembly, its intention was to become permanently integrated into our systems of governance.

Next, the day’s programme offered us an interactive dynamic, with parallel panels, led by Ane Miren Valenciano, Arantzazulab’s project manager. Three axes were proposed: systemic innovation, public innovation and institutional transformation and deliberative democracy.

In one of the panels, Ingrid Burkett from the Griffith Centre for Systemic Innovation went deeper into the systemic innovation. To go deeper into systemic innovation, he proposes not to work with a single ‘real’ framework: people must take the framework to their context and return to the framework, interactively. Stéphane Vincent from La 27e Region stressed that his work focuses on generating transformation processes, both from government and politicians, from within. This is what they call ‘boring innovation’. 

Claudia Chwalisz from Demnext and Igor Ahedo from the UPV/EHU Hartuz research group spoke on deliberative democracy. Claudia underlined the existence of a great global deliberative wave worldwide and warned that they are working to generate stable changes that contribute to achieving a change of power. Igor mentioned the positive aspects of Deliberative Democracy and raised some challenges, such as the need to connect with social movements, among others. 

To end the day, we were able to learn about local experiences that are being carried out in collaboration for the transformation, innovation of governments and the activation of society, led by the managing director of Arantzazulab Naiara Goia. 

Irune Berasaluze, Governance Deputy from the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, spoke about innovation based on Challenges and missions. On the basis of shared responsibility, Irune referred to the importance of community building and highlighted the importance of Arantzazulab.  

The Director of Social Innovation of the Basque Government, Asier Aranbarri, explained the Euskadi 2030 strategy. He highlighted the path of sharing our projects and the essential attempt to connect with organised and unorganised society. The Director General of the Kutxa Foundation, Ander Aizpurua, highlighted the value of the Hitzetatik ekintzetara project and made an invitation to draw models and lessons learned from local experiences. 

The Mayoress of Oñati, Izaro Elorza, focused on the innovation of local authorities. She referred to the collaborative practices of local administrations with citizens and stressed that local administrations have the right conditions to establish links with citizens. However, she pointed out that local administrations also have ‘limitations’ in terms of available resources.

This brought the conference to a close with a summary by Adam Kahane of Reos Partners from Canada. As a conclusion, he suggested four words to build a common language to work through these complex challenges: holon, agency, belonging and reciprocity.  

During these three intense days, the Conference on Innovation in Democracy  provided us with elements of inspiration, threads of reflection, interesting views, countless questions and multiple ways of collaboration. 

Let’s continue experimenting new paths!