Social Participation and Popular Education in the Territories (BR0130)

Brief description of the commitment

Establish a collaborative network for training territorial agents to boost social participation through popular, digital, and media education, promoting healthy and sustainable territories.

Problem Definition

1. What problem does the commitment aim to solve?

The commitment seeks to face the main challenge of building social participation strategies with popular, digital, and media education, with instruments for intra- and inter-governmental relations and permanently promoting social participation with popular education in the territories. According to the Open Government Review of Brazil19 launched in 2022 by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Brazil has a historical culture of social participation, but in the recent period, it has been weakened by the shrinking of civic space and institutional measures aimed to reduce its role in federal government decisions. One of these measures was the Decree No. 9759/2019, revoked by the current government, which abolished a series of councils and other collegiate bodies in the federal public administration. This measure contributed to the exclusion of social movements and civil society organizations from political participation processes as a way of achieving concrete improvements for their community. Another factor contributing to this weakening is disinformation, characterized by the intentional manipulation of public debate and the dispute over ideas and values, especially considering the potential for dissemination on social networks. In this context, we are also witnessing the growing use of digital media and social networks in the process of popular mobilization. While technology represents great possibilities for innovation in social participation and access to public policies, it also has limitations in terms of its availability - due to economic, cultural, generational, and accessibility factors, among others - and dangers in terms of its abuse, especially about disinformation and fraud. In addition, governments are still trying to develop efficient forms of communication with society that encourage and promote participation, taking into account regional differences and the specificities of territories. As a result, people are subjected to a context in which, on the one hand, face-to-face participation activities are not always carried out in their territories, and on the other, digital activities may not be available to them - it is important to consider that many popular internet packages allow unlimited access to social networks but limit other forms of browsing, preventing access to public services and institutional channels. These facts demonstrate the need for citizen training on public policies, civil rights, and access to mechanisms and instances of participation so that citizens are informed and collaborate in policy formulation. To this end, it is necessary to develop social participation strategies and intergovernmental relations that prioritize the integration of policies and collaboration with society. Therefore, building social participation strategies with popular, digital, and media education is associated with the idea of changing public policy conceptions from user to subject; from compensatory to emancipatory policy; and from fragmentation to integration, to strengthen civic space and, consequently, democracy itself.

2. What causes the problem?

In addition to the factors described above, there are also internal issues within the bureaucracy. In some sectors of the administration, a narrow conception of social participation persists, which focuses only on its important institutional bodies, such as councils and conferences, but does not always recognize the participation of other people and groups who could contribute to the construction of policies. There is a lack of integration between the territorial initiatives of different public policies, and the absence of a training strategy that takes advantage of the possible synergies between these initiatives. This coordination could be particularly fruitful in terms of encouraging social participation not only in monitoring but also in implementing public policies, including seeking to promote collaboration with neighborhood associations, social movements, civil society organizations, and people interested in public management. In addition to these limitations, there is also the growing participation of individual parliamentary amendments in the allocation of federal resources and the complex relationship between states, municipalities, and the federal government due to the current terms of the Federative Pact. In addition, communication about public policies and participatory processes helps to combat disinformation, but the limited reach of official channels and the costs of dissemination are other major challenges. The dissemination of these initiatives tends to be done through hegemonic channels of mass communication, such as newspapers and television, with high costs in formats and messages that do not always speak to the population that receives them, while other forms of communication (local media and vehicles, or strategies for social networks, for example) that could improve the circulation of official information are rarely considered. At the same time, there is a need for progress in digital and media education, both by society and by governments, considering the gaps in coverage in many vulnerable urban and especially rural territories in the country.

Commitment Description

1. What has been done so far to solve the problem?

Specifically in the context of the commitments of the Open Government plans, there are a series of commitments directly related to the issue of social participation, most of them proposed or carried out by the beginning of 2016, in the third Brazilian Action Plan. These are efforts in different directions: expanding social participation; regulating, guiding, and integrating participatory processes; strengthening and offering training for participatory bodies, especially councils; and qualifying digital participation, among others. The commitments have been carried out with varying levels of implementation and impact, and are in addition to many initiatives aimed at valuing and strengthening social participation that take place within the public administration in an individualized way. One attempt to integrate these efforts was the creation of the National Social Participation Policy which, despite the support of civil society, faced great opposition in the media and the legislative houses, culminating in its repeal. In addition to the Plans, many initiatives have been carried out to involve the population more in participatory processes, so that people take ownership of their rights and public policies. One of them, which we seek to implement in this commitment, is the Reference Framework of Popular Education for Public Policies, which contains the history and guidelines of this pedagogy and the conception of the world that guides these efforts. In 2023, after the period of deconstruction of the instances and mechanisms of social participation, a series of measures were adopted that sought not only to reconstitute them but also to reaffirm and expand them. Among them, it is important to mention the creation of the Social Participation Council, the institutionalization of a Social Participation System, the recreation of the Inter-Council Forum, and the resumption of National Conferences. In addition to these initiatives, an important boost to social participation in the drafting of budgets came with the construction of the 2024-2027 Multiannual Plan. With more than 4 million online contributions, the participation of more than 30,000 people in face-to-face plenary sessions in all the states of the federation, and the work of the Inter-Council Forum (reinforcing its work as proposed in the 3rd Open Government Action Plan), this initiative demonstrated the possibilities of integrating the various participation initiatives in the country. This participatory process, coordinated by the National Secretariat for Social Participation (re- institutionalized last year by the General Secretariat of the Presidency) and the Ministry of Budget and Planning, had the support of participation and diversity advisors present in all the Ministries and promoted the participation of movements, civil society organizations, the private sector, and the academic community. The experience, which received more than 4,000 proposals, demonstrates the potential that territorial actions promoted by government and civil society can achieve if they are well coordinated and integrated, and it is in the hope of harnessing this potential to promote democracy and protect civic space.

2. What solution are you proposing?

The Commitment has a broad theme, seeking to promote social organization and democracy through the articulation of territorial actions linked to public policies. Of course, it won’t fully solve a complex problem that today compromises democracies all over the world, regardless of their level of maturity. However, it does represent an effort to make politics, public policies, and social participation meaningful in people’s daily lives, and with the popular education approach, we can democratize people’s involvement in participatory processes. This effort differs from previous attempts in that it seeks to integrate territorial actions, both governmental and civil society organizations, in a network logic, which will encourage the sharing of strategies and information and foster a complementary vision between policies. As a result, more local leaders will be better trained to take part in the public debate, will be more familiar with the tools available for action, more people will have access to information on public policies, and will have increased their critical capacity with the risks of disinformation. With the use of the Decidim open platform and the involvement of its community of collaborators, digital participation has gained unprecedented proportions in the country. At the same time, the articulation between social participation and popular education seeks to listen to the population of the most diverse Brazilian territories to encourage the construction of more participatory public policies. The expected consequence of these different strategies working together is the strengthening of social participation, civic space, and democracy.

3. What results do we want to achieve by implementing this commitment?

The mapping milestones (1 to 4) of local policies, organizations working to promote rights, popular education practices, and the definition of healthy territories will help produce an overview of social participation initiatives promoted by civil society. The articulation milestones (5 to 7) will integrate the actions developed by civil society with the government’s territorial efforts to promote complementary and networked action, optimizing efforts and leveraging exchanges of knowledge and strategies between the different participating segments. The training milestones (8 to 10) will seek to disseminate knowledge about social participation, open government and support efforts to tackle disinformation, and promote critical, media and digital literacy in the territories.

Commitment Analysis

1. How will the commitment promote transparency? Once the mapping milestones included in the commitment have been met, integrated databases will be built on entities and organizations that work to promote rights and public policies on a territorial basis, facilitating the articulation of this form of action. Guaranteed the precautions established by the General Personal Data Protection Law, community use of the databases can promote effective integration between civil society and government initiatives.

2. How commitment will help promote accountability? The relationship is indirect, in the sense that participation expands the processes of accountability and the exercise of social control functions attributed to councils, but there is no explicit framework for this purpose.

3. How will the commitment improve citizen participation in defining, implementing, and monitoring solutions? Once the training and mobilization milestones have been met, the commitment will allow citizens to become better acquainted with the instances and mechanisms of social participation, the people who promote them and how to access them. These milestones will broaden participation in these bodies and mechanisms, making them even more representative.

Commitment Planning (Milestone | Expected Results | Target Completion Date)

Milestone 1 - Map and integrate/articulate the public policies of territorial agents for this agenda | Mapping consolidated and integration of public policies of territorial agents carried out | Abril/2024

Milestone 2 - Map entities working to promote and defend rights and advise on public policies as a form of territorial identification to promote social participation | Mapping carried out | June/2024

Milestone 3 - Define/ map healthy/sustainable territories | Healthy/ sustainable territories mapped | June/2024

Milestone 4 - Map popular education movements and practices in the territories | Mapping carried out | August/2024

Milestone 5 - Articulate social, trade union, and popular movements for the actions of the Open Government Action Plan | Articulated movements | June/2027

Milestone 6 - Articulate an open and collaborative network for training territorial agents | Network mobilized | April/2025

Milestone 7 - Hold meetings with organizations, institutions, and social movements that work with popular education | Meetings held | June/2024

Milestone 8 - Draw up guidelines and propose common actions for training territorial agents in popular, digital, and media education | Guidelines drawn up, and common training actions proposed to the bodies responsible for implementing territorial agent policies | May/2025

Milestone 9 - Promote training in education and critical, media and digital literacy in territories | Training carried out | June/2027

Milestone 10 - Carry out training processes on popular participation to strengthen democracy in the territories | Training processes implemented | June/2027

Milestone 11 - Build a communication campaign to reinforce existing popular participation processes | Communication campaign developed | December/2025

Milestone 12 - Build a national joint effort with social participation and mobilization | Task force carried out | June/2026

Milestone 13 – Monitor and follow up on implemented actions | Follow-up and monitoring documents made available | June/2027