Lessons learnt from the story-telling exercises
One of the main part of the co-design process of the MLG Charter was based on a story-telling exercise: participants involved during the Steering Committee, the pre-interviews sessions and the Co-creation workshop were each time encouraged to imagine new situations where the MLG Charter would be used and to capture these situations though a simple Story-telling exercise.
Beyond working material for the use-based methodology, they constitutes a stimulating panorama of possible or potential usages and application of the MLG Charter. Different usages of the Charter are emerging form the analysis of the stories emerged from the story-telling exercise.
1/ Facilitating convergence and collaboration
The MLG Charter process is seen as a way for better mutual understanding and collaboration between institutional levels and various stakeholders, a space for exchange of experiences and practices, a basis to start negotiations, foster engagement and build coalitions:
- […] The process they are taking is also seen as learning and they share their progress on the MLG website […]
- […] idea is not only to create the communications between levels of government, but also bring this multi-layered communication and collaboration between academia, government and business […]
- […] The MLG Charter assists local, regional and national levels to adhere to national reform programs to implement various objectives set by Europe 2020 in local and regional areas […] Coordinators and facilitators who are familiar with the issue and MLG are working in cooperation with expert bodies and national agencies to ensure duplication does not occur […]
- […] The MLG Charter has been triggered to negotiate and collaborate with other European Countries to explore knowledge and methods to implement such a plan […]
- […] The Rescue Services […] are joining forces through leveraging the MLG Charter to work in partnership on both ambulance and fire emergencies […]
- […] local level […] needs to address the issues in their local context, however need to comply and work with national and international levels to monitor and measure progress. The MLG charter is assisting with the conversation, negotiation and facilitation going on between different levels […]
- […] regions are playing an increasing role in designing regional development strategy […]. MLG is being used as a charter to trigger for engagement […]
- […] I used it (the MLG Charter) in order to build a coalition with the representatives of the European Commission, the BCE 2, LRAS, to identify least painful and most just ways of applying the budgetary austerity needed […]
2/ Leveraging and taking action
The second usage of the Charter quoted in the stories collected is leveraging on the Charter to post complain or claim for governance changes and especially to facilitate dialogue between local/regional levels and national/European one:
- […] Along with my Ukrainian colleague, we have launched an appeal to the EU institutions based on the MLG Charter […]
- […] I’m reclaiming a “one-stop-shop” and I lodged a complaint to the mediator on the bases of the MLG charter […]
- […] although it is not their role, the group of cities decides to take action anyway and leveraging on the recently issued charter on multi-level governance […]
- […] start negotiations with the European Commission by leveraging with the Multi Level Governance Charter […]
- […] regions in Europe are cooperating with decision-making levels of government. In general the EU Commission and Member States are paying more attention to conversation and negotiation due to the new MLG Charter […]
- […] the City […] became one of the members of the European collective signatories of the MLG charter. Local partners now have a new form of leverage to claim their rights […]
- […] My lawyer appeals on the grounds of the MLG Charter which stipulates that the citizens cannot suffer the damage deriving from conflicts between regulations from different levels. So the suspension of the works has been upheld until the final resolution of the conflicts between regulations […]
3/ Inspiring model and reference
Also in many situations pictured in the stories, the Charter is seen as an inspiring element that ’embodies’ the change form the current models towards a new culture of governance and provide related processes and tools to support and promote it:
- […] be an initial source of inspiration for a full implication of all stakeholders […] guide consultation processes, […] identify tools and options, […] provide stimuli for experimentation and brainstorming and […] form the basis of the participatory process […]
- […] I discovered the Charter as an important reference with good and bad practices of democratic citizenship (from the online platform) […]
- […] a foresight exercise which will enable to anticipate the implementation and the actualization of the multi-level governance charter principles in a 30 years […]
- […] the “City” and townships don’t coordinate their politics, […] She used the charter […] to hold the tourist stakeholders “Accountable” via the local press. She progressively succeeded and got the mayors of the little townships to also sign the charter and the mayor […] to take concrete actions […]
- […] we used it to develop a 3D digital tool which allows to visualize data, stakeholders, competences of the different territories, public and private actors concerned at the various levels […]
- […] We went to see the municipal authorities, the hospitals, the organizations of nurses and doctors as well as the Ministries […] In other words, we helped MLG happen through our members […]
- […] Through the MLG Charters guidelines on how to create a culture of civil participation and co-designing public policies, they catalysed a new dynamic and culture change between citizens and local government. […]
4/ A multi-service of training, education, dissemination
Beyond the core content of GMN principle the Charter is seen as a system of elements (training programmes, implementation tools, education supports, etc.) to facilitate the dissemination of multilevel governance:
- […] The association has been using the MLG Charter Toolkits to make the animation of work session in which citizens have been able to express their design ideas and views […]
- […] The MLG facilitator has been mediating a conversation between the local and national levels to innovate ways to make best use of the current resources and capabilities […]
- […] MLG Charter assists the cohesion policy to be implemented effectively because of the training programs, tools, communications and education […]
- […] MLG Charter is the beginning of the process of instilling a culture of collaboration, so the education program helps to enhance the MLG agenda […]
- […] celebrate and create unity amongst EU members on MLG Charter; local, regional and national leaders come together for a 2 day forum to be trained on the principles of MLG and also sign the Charter[…]
- […] Decisions are in fact taking less time because there is a strong dialogue between different members. These members have been trained in MLG curriculum […]
- […] the MLG Charter has been utilised to ensure there is a 40% allocation of funds to the five regions […]. This transition will occur by having training programs set up with in the […] government to ensure there is strong dialogue occurring between local, regional and national governments on how the budget is being spent […]
- […] Children in local schools […] have been introduced to the MLG charter through the interactive charters website explaining in simple schemes and using easy examples, the main principles of MLG […]
- […] I could gain visibility towards the European Commission for my small association and its objectives. […]
- […] the city mayor which received the label “For a good MLG in Europe” by signing the charter have based some new local […]
I think thr discussion of the charter does not insist enough on key points. MLG starts from a very simple statement: none of the real issues in our present world can be properly addressed at one only level of governance. Therefore the core of governance should be how differnet levels of governance are to collaborate together. This issue was not properly addressed in the conventional wisdom in democratic governance which was based on an aporia: on one side, each level governance has to have its exclusive competence in order for the voters to assess the quality of the leaders but on the other hand it is conterproductive to address the real issues of society. MLG calls for a new methodology which is called “active subsidiarity principle”. In many respects the open coordination which is part of the European governance is a proxy of this principle: exchange of experience at one level gives the way to common guidelines which define the rule of the game for the relationships between tho levels of governance. If you give me a mail address I shall send you details on the principle and methodology. It is driven by the idea that art of governance implies to get together diversity and unity. If there is no clear definition of this mechanism in the Charter, MLG becomes only a vague call in favor of cooperation. MLG is not solely the idea of co-production of public good. It goes beyond