Article by Alicja Gniadzik, Ruth Susana Pasquin, Daniel Köberl and Mateusz Tokarski: “Citizen Assemblies are meant to create opportunities for citizens to contribute to policymaking. The main task envisioned for citizens is to learn, deliberate and develop recommendations, and as such, assembly members rarely contribute to the assembly design, implementation and follow-up. There are a growing number of exceptions – some youth and children assemblies have been co-designed with participants to ensure the process meets the needs of young people, whilst in permanent assemblies, members steer some aspects of the process, selecting the topic, and taking decisions as to how the Assembly should be run, or monitoring follow-up.
In this article we share our insights from working within an Assembly that aimed to both meet young people’s needs and strengthen collective agency. We share our experiences as participants and organiser on the role and contribution of Task Forces to enhancing agency, functionality and relationality of Citizens’ Assemblies.
The Young Citizens Assembly on Pollinators (YCAP) aimed to provide young people across Europe with an opportunity for more direct involvement in EU policymaking on environmental issues. The Assembly gathered 100 young people from across all EU countries, selected by democratic lottery to represent the diversity of the EU youth population. During three in-person weekends and two online sessions, Assembly members learned about the issue and biodiversity governance mechanisms from experts, discussed different perspectives with stakeholders, and exchanged with EU officials on the existing policies…(More)”.
