After a year of work and over a dozen of events, the Council of Europe School on Participatory Democracy in Türkiye came to an end. The closure event of the School jointly organised by the Division of Democratic Institutions and Civil Society from Council of Europe, the Association of Civil Society Development Centre (STGM), Argüden Governance Academy, and Istanbul Citizens’ Assembly, took place in Istanbul on 13 June 2024.
After the first training activities organised in Istanbul and Ankara in September and October 2023, the 50 representatives from CSOs and public institutions took part during 8 months in different in-depth trainings in-presence and online to improve their practical skills and knowledge of how to engage citizens in decision making effectively. Parallel to that, the participants have already started to utilise the Council of Europe's participatory democracy tools in practice. Some of the participants have developed new projects in close cooperation with other participants and additional stakeholders, and at least five participatory projects are currently applying for funding from sources such as EU grants or the Erasmus+ project. In addition, several participants plan to use the Civil Participation Toolkit and the CivicLab methodology in the upcoming months for the strategic planning process of municipalities, which started after the local elections in Türkiye in March 2024.
During the closure event, participants discussed the further adaptation of the Council of Europe tools to the Turkish context and their application in Türkiye in the near future. At the end of the event, the participants received their certificates, becoming part of the Council of Europe alumni network, which counts already more than 100 members.
The Turkish partners and participants stated that the Council of Europe School on Participatory Democracy has paved the way for new projects, new initiatives, and new partnerships for the development of participatory democracy in Türkiye and welcomed, that a lively community of practitioners, keen to ensure that citizens are more actively and effectively engaged in the decision-making processes and regain trust in democratic processes, has been created.
