Submitted Successfully!
To reward your contribution, here is a gift for you: A free trial for our video production service.
Thank you for your contribution! You can also upload a video entry or images related to this topic.
Version Summary Created by Modification Content Size Created at Operation
1
Fanny Esther Beriguete Alcántara
 -- 1599 2023-06-09 18:28:34 |
2 format
Jason Zhu
 Meta information modification 1599 2023-06-12 08:10:54 |

Video Upload Options

Do you have a full video?
Send video materials Upload full video

Confirm

Are you sure to Delete?
Yes No
Cite
If you have any further questions, please contact Encyclopedia Editorial Office.
Berigüete Alcántara, F.E.; Rodriguez Cantalapiedra, I.; Palumbo, M.; Masseck, T. Evaluation Tool for Citizen Initiatives. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/45398 (accessed on 26 June 2024).
Berigüete Alcántara FE, Rodriguez Cantalapiedra I, Palumbo M, Masseck T. Evaluation Tool for Citizen Initiatives. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/45398. Accessed June 26, 2024.
Berigüete Alcántara, Fanny E., Inma Rodriguez Cantalapiedra, Mariana Palumbo, Torsten Masseck. "Evaluation Tool for Citizen Initiatives" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/45398 (accessed June 26, 2024).
Berigüete Alcántara, F.E., Rodriguez Cantalapiedra, I., Palumbo, M., & Masseck, T. (2023, June 09). Evaluation Tool for Citizen Initiatives. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/45398
Berigüete Alcántara, Fanny E., et al. "Evaluation Tool for Citizen Initiatives." Encyclopedia. Web. 09 June, 2023.
Evaluation Tool for Citizen Initiatives
Edit
This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su15107956
The path towards sustainability is closely related to new institutional and political paradigms and emerging models of practices, technologies, lifestyles, attitudes, and values. In this sense, the CIs, collectives where citizens self-organise through collaborative practices, networking, and knowledge transfer, come into their own, creating spaces for coexistence, reflection, and meeting where social innovation is the backbone. These multidisciplinary collaborative practices are developed on the basis of active citizen participation, improving individual and community life in the neighbourhood.
social innovation sustainable cities bottom-up process citizen participation

1. Introduction

Today’s cities require a change in urban planning to address the complex relationships between citizens’ interests and needs, urban transformations, environmental degradation, urban policies, and economic interests in a sustainable approach [1]. Social innovation is one of the pillars of sustainability that is becoming increasingly important as one of the dimensions that merit a multidisciplinary and transversal approach [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], where the active participation of citizens is required not only as recipients [10] but also as co-creators of their reality. In this sense, a series of mechanisms and strategies have emerged that seek to involve citizens in decision-making processes in the city, such as participatory budgets, urban centres, living labs [11][12], and innovation centres, in which synergies are created between civil society, public administration, academia, and companies [13] to seek solutions to social challenges; these strategies and platforms are usually guided by public administration. On the other hand, another type of participation and appropriation of space mechanism called Citizens’ Initiatives (CIs) are born in a spontaneous but conscientious way.
CIs can have different natures, guided through top-down processes or self-managed through bottom-up processes. This entry focuses on CIs aligned with bottom-up processes, which can be defined as “informal processes of citizen practice that resiliently and adaptively modify the urban environment. They are self-organized, collective practices that work for the urban empowerment of citizens and develop critical processes on the current city” [14][15].
These initiatives arise from a variety of problems and perspectives in the city, such as the recovery of public spaces, the creation of gardens, the use of renewable energies, and the protection of the city’s cultural and historical legacy, among others. As Cámara Menoyo pointed out, these are spontaneous processes with heterogeneous results, which, although they do not have a similar scope to the urban planning processes promoted by local authorities [16], have a positive impact on local problems and on raising citizens’ awareness.
The role of CIs in the transition to sustainability is a topic of growing interest [17][18] due to recent evidence that they can in one way or another contribute to improving their environment and people’s quality of life, yet there is little evaluation and assessment of their level of contribution [19].
CIs have the potential to be less constrained by top-down structural processes and stimulate small-scale changes that positively impact the urban space and its citizens, as they are not subject to institutional policies and bureaucracies. That said, little is known about the potential of CIs to generate beneficial impacts for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as their leadership in creating fertile ground and contributing to a more sustainable urban city model [20].

2. Citizen Initiatives 

The first widespread and organised collective movement arose as a reaction to excessive prices and poor-quality products, especially in the food sector. The modern cooperative movement emerged in Rochdale, in the northwest of England, in 1844, in the midst of industrialisation. Although the first cooperatives date back to an earlier period, at the hands of craftsmen, it was at this time that a wave of cooperative movements emerged, based on the principle of “self-help by the people” without distinguishing between consumers and producers [21].
The history of cooperative movements and community development initiatives are intertwined, as both movements have grown out of people’s need to collectively address issues affecting their daily lives. Cooperatives are an example of community-driven efforts to address economic and social inequality, while community development initiatives aim to promote social change by empowering communities to take charge of their own development. Both movements have been instrumental in addressing issues of poverty, access to goods and services, and social exclusion [22].
For instance, research has shown that cooperatives can have positive impacts on poverty reduction, food security, and women’s empowerment [22][23]. Similarly, community development initiatives have been found to be effective in promoting community participation, social cohesion, and sustainable development [24][25].
Over the past 30 years, tools have been developed to support the development of these integrated initiatives for community change and provide visibility for them. In 1995, a team of experts from the University of Kansas created an online tool to guide community processes on their path to sustainability, called the Community Tool Box. This tool provides a range of content and information within the framework of community development and health, enabling the management and evaluation of community initiatives. Although this tool does not focus on assessing the environmental impact of initiatives, it helps communities overcome the barriers that may arise in their search for community development, creating consolidated groups that work together to generate solutions to common problems. As such, cooperative movements and community development initiatives can benefit from each other’s experiences and practices to further promote sustainable development and social change [26].
On the other hand, in Europe, the Treaty of Lisbon, which amends the Treaty of European Union (EU) and the Treaty establishing the European Community, which entered into force on 1 December 2009, opens a new window for citizen participation by giving citizens the opportunity to participate directly in legislative development [27]. In the same vein, cohesion policy is the main investment instrument of the European Union [28], whose objective is to “support job creation, business competitiveness, economic growth, sustainable development and the improvement of the quality of life of citizens in all regions and cities of the EU” [29].
In 2020, the European Commission developed two pilot schemes to facilitate and enhance the active participation of citizens in social cohesion projects. In the first pilot scheme, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) provided advice and training to the authorities managing the funds for the implementation of new initiatives to encourage citizen participation, in a coworking model where the needs and opinions of all the groups involved were considered. In the second pilot scheme, the European Commission earmarked EUR 250,000 to fund and support innovative CIs from small local civil society organizations. This favoured the inclusion of small and local civil society institutions in European funding programs, an action that generates citizens’ ownership of the changes brought about by the cohesion policies developed [30].
Simultaneously, in recent decades, CIs have emerged in Europe to address the many early 21st-century challenges facing society at the local level. Through them, citizens collectively strive to achieve common goals, based on the self-management of the participants. As a result, new collectives emerge and the associative fabric gains strength in the management of community needs, as well as in the improvement of their immediate environment [31].
In Spain in recent years, there has been a proliferation of such collectives and associations that empower citizens in the promotion and implementation of sustainable practices [32]. In this type of association, citizens play an active role in the self-management of resources and in the generation of collective spaces for the debate of local problems, leading projects to reconfigure the physical and social context in which they are located [33]. In this sense, several research studies attempt to analyse CIs, whether from the context [34][35], the typology [36][37], or the way they are managed [17][38].
The evaluation of these types of collectives and associations is scarce. The existing literature identified only three systems in Europe aiming at the measurement of the level of empowerment of citizens to modify and improve their environment. These are:
  • Towards European Sustainable Societies (TESS)—United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Finland, and Romania (2013–2016).
  • Multidimensional assessment of the environmental and socioeconomic performance of community-based sustainability initiatives (MDA)—Italia (2019).
  • Criteria for assessing the transformation potential of sustainability initiatives (CATPSI)—Germany (2019).
An in-depth review analysing these three evaluation models can be found in [39]. In summary:
In 2019, Celata and Sanna created an evaluation system assessing the impact of initiatives on their surroundings in four areas: environmental, social, economic, and community development. They evaluated 37 initiatives and classified them according to their typology: food cooperatives, solidarity shopping collectives, community gardens, community energy, recycling, and mobility initiatives [18].
In 2013, the European research project TESS (Towards European Social Sustainability) was launched, which analysed the role of community initiatives on the road to sustainability in cities, through the creation of an evaluation system and the subsequent analysis of 63 case studies, which made it possible to monitor and report on the social, political, economic, technological, and environmental impacts of community initiatives, as well as their savings in carbon emissions [20].
Finalmente, el proyecto Kriterien zur Bewertung des Transformationspotenzials von Nachhaltigkeitsinitiativen (criterios para evaluar el potencial de transformación de las iniciativas de sostenibilidad) desarrolló un sistema para evaluar el potencial de sostenibilidad y transformación de las iniciativas con el fin de revelar su valor y facilitar el reconocimiento y apoyo por parte de las administraciones públicas [40].
Los sistemas analizados comparten una estructura común compuesta por criterios, dimensiones, indicadores y un cuestionario. Sin embargo, difieren en la ponderación de parámetros, a saber, innovación, comunidades resilientes, recomendaciones a las administraciones, capacidad organizativa, escalabilidad, potencial de transformación y dimensión política. La evaluación de iniciativas en estos sistemas requiere mucho tiempo debido a la necesidad de entrevistas extensas que involucran hasta 130 preguntas muy específicas y extensas. En particular, si bien la sostenibilidad es un enfoque principal, estos sistemas no priorizan la mejora y transformación del espacio urbano.

References

  1. Wunder, S.; Albrecht, S.; Porsch, L.; Öhler, L. Kriterien zur Bewertung des Transformationspotentials von Nachhaltigkeitsinitiativen; Umweltbundesamt: Dessau-Roßlau, Germany, 2019.
  2. Wu, J.; Li, W.; Xu, W.; Yuan, L. Measuring Resident Participation in the Renewal of Older Residential Communities in China under Policy Change. Sustainability 2023, 15, 2751.
  3. Bouw, K.; Wiekens, C.J.; Tigchelaar, C.; Faaij, A. Involving Citizens in Heat Planning: A Participatory Process Design for Informed Decision-Making. Sustainability 2023, 15, 1937.
  4. de Freitas, A.C.; do Nascimento, L.A.; de Castro, R.G.; Motokane, M.T.; Reis, P. Biodiversity and Citizenship in an Argumentative Socioscientific Process. Sustainability 2023, 15, 2987.
  5. Navickien, O.; Meidutė-Kavaliauskienė, I.; Činčikaitė, R.; Morkūnas, M.; Valackienė, A. Modernisation of a Country in the Context of Social Environmental Sustainability: Example of Lithuania. Sustainability 2023, 15, 3689.
  6. Yamin, P.; Artavia-mora, L.; Martunaite, B.; Lahiri, S. Installations for Civic Culture: Behavioral Policy Interventions to Promote Social Sustainability. Sustainability 2023, 15, 3825.
  7. Pinto, H.; Nogueira, C.; Guerreiro, J.A.; Sampaio, F. Social Innovation and the Role of the State: Learning from the Portuguese Experience on Multi-Level Interactions. World 2021, 2, 62–80.
  8. Semanjski, I.; Gautama, S. A Collaborative Stakeholder Decision-Making Approach for Sustainable Urban Logistics. Sustainability 2019, 11, 234.
  9. Almeida, F. The Contribution of Local Agents and Citizens to Sustainable Development: The Portuguese Experience. Sustainability 2022, 14, 12696.
  10. MacRae, R.; Szabo, M.; Anderson, K.; Louden, F.; Trillo, S. Empowering the Citizen-Consumer: Re-Regulating Consumer Information to Support the Transition to Sustainable and Health Promoting Food Systems in Canada. Sustainability 2012, 4, 2146–2175.
  11. Bouwma, I.; Wigboldus, S.; Potters, J.; Selnes, T.; van Rooij, S.; Westerink, J. Sustainability Transitions and the Contribution of Living Labs: A Framework to Assess Collective Capabilities and Contextual Performance. Sustainability 2022, 14, 15628.
  12. Kesselring, S.; Simon-philipp, C.; Bansen, J.; Hefner, B.; Minnich, L.; Schreiber, J. Sustainable Mobilities in the Neighborhood: Methodological Innovation for Social Change. Sustainability 2023, 15, 3583.
  13. Lepore, D.; Testi, N.; Pasher, E. Building Inclusive Smart Cities through Innovation Intermediaries. Sustainability 2023, 15, 4024.
  14. Acosta Pérez, E.; Gil-Fournier Esquerra, M.; Jaenicke Fontao, M. Vivero de iniciativas ciudadanas: Transferencia de la innovación ciudadana al espacio público. Educ. Soc. Rev. Interv. Socioeduc. 2013, 55, 94–102, ISSN 1135-8629.
  15. Vivero de Iniciativas Ciudadanas. Pero ¿Qué es una Iniciativa Ciudadana? 2012. Available online: http://viveroiniciativasciudadanas.net/2012/11/21/pero-que-es-una-iniciativa-ciudadana/ (accessed on 12 January 2020).
  16. Cámara Menoyo, C. Las iniciativas de participación ciudadana en el urbanismo. El urbanismo participativo, una nueva forma de entender la ciudad y la ciudadanía en la configuración de espacios públicos. URBS Rev. Estud. Urbanos Cienc. Soc. 2012, 2, 19–32, ISSN 2014-2714.
  17. Celata, F.; Sanna, V.S. A multi-dimensional assessment of the environmental and socioeconomic performance of community-based sustainability initiatives in Europe. Rev. Reg. Environ. Chang. 2019, 19, 939–952.
  18. Cespedes Avalos, M. Evaluación y Participación Ciudadana. Aportes Para una Estrategia de Integración, San José, Costa Rica. 2017. Available online: http://foceval.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2017_Evaluación-y-participación-ciudadana.pdf (accessed on 25 May 2019).
  19. Marradi, C.; Mulder, I. Scaling Local Bottom-Up Innovations through Value Co-Creation. Sustainability 2022, 14, 11678.
  20. Kropp, J.P.; Dinnie, E.; Anguelovski, I.; Tikkanen, J. Towards European Sustainable Societies (TESS): Final Publishable Summary Report of the European FP7 Project; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research: Potsdam, Germany, 2016.
  21. Gabriel, Y.; Lang, T. A Brief History of Consumer Activism. In The Ethical Consumer; Harrison, R., Newholm, T., Shaw, D., Eds.; Sage: London, UK, 2005.
  22. Birchall, J. Building Communities: The Co-Operative Way; Routledge: London, UK, 1998; ISBN 978-13-17-70351-8.
  23. International Labour Organization. World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends; ILO: Geneva, Switzerland, 2018; ISBN 978-92-2-131535-3.
  24. Matarrita-Cascante, D.; Brennan, M.A. Conceptualizing community development in the twenty-first century. Community Dev. 2012, 43, 293–305.
  25. Wallerstein, I. El Mundo Está Desencajado. Interpretaciones Histórico-Mundiales de las Continuas Polarizaciones; Siglo XXI: Mexico City, Mexico, 2016; ISBN 978-607-03-0790-4.
  26. Fawcett, S.B.; Schultz, J.A.; Thomas Francisco, V. The community tool box: A web-based resource for building healthier communities. Public Health Rep. 2000, 115, 274–278.
  27. Comisión Europea. Guía Para La Iniciativa Ciudadana Europea; Oficina de Publicaciones de la Unión Europea: Luxembourg, 2011; ISBN 978-92-79-21773-9.
  28. Comisión Europea. Política de cohesión 2014–2020. 2014. Available online: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/informing/index_es.cfm%0APortales (accessed on 15 May 2020).
  29. Comisión Europea, Dirección General de Política Regional y Urbana. Una Introducción a la Política de Cohesión de la UE 2014–2020; Oficina de Publicaciones: Luxembourg, 2014.
  30. Centro de Documentación Europea. Política de Cohesión: Hacer que los Ciudadanos Participen Para Obtener Mejores Resultados. 7 February 2020. Available online: http://cde.ugr.es/index.php/union-europea/noticias-ue/916-politica-de-cohesion-hacer-que-los-ciudadanos-participen-para-obtener-mejores-resultados (accessed on 10 January 2022).
  31. López-Sánchez, M.P.; Alberich, T.; Aviñó, D.; Francés García, F.; Ruiz-Azarola, A.; Villasante, T. Herramientas y métodos participativos para la acción comunitaria. Informe SESPAS 2018. Gac. Sanit. 2018, 32, 32–40.
  32. Morales Morales, E. Empoderamiento y Transformación de las Relaciones de Poder. Un Análisis Crítico de los Procesos Institucionales de Participación Ciudadana. Ph.D. Thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 2016.
  33. Gomà, R.; Blanco, I. Gobiernos locales y redes participativas: Retos e innovaciones. In Proceedings of the VII Congreso Internacional del CLAD sobre la Reforma del Estado y de la Administración Pública, Lisboa, Portugal, 8–11 October 2002; pp. 8–11.
  34. Asociación Simbioisis. Alcalá con Iniciativas. 2016. Available online: https://asociacionsimbiosis.org/alcala-con-iniciativas/ (accessed on 13 April 2023).
  35. De Jorge-Huertas, V. Collaborative designing of communities. Helsinki and Zurich pioneers. ACE Archit. City Environ. 2020, 15, 1–22.
  36. CERAI. Sistemas Alimentarios Territorializados en España. 100 Iniciativas Locales Para una Alimentación Responsable y Sostenible. Available online: https://cerai.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/publicaci%C3%B3n_100iniciativasSATenEspa%C3%B1a-CERAI.pdf (accessed on 16 June 2022).
  37. Gómez Lucena, Á. Consolidar el tejido social a través de la participación comunitaria en salud. Rev. Salud 2000 2008, 116, 21–22.
  38. Guillén Marcos, E. Iniciativas ciudadanas. Experiencias, Revista E-Rph 2010, 7, 126–166.
  39. Berigüete Alcántara, F.; Cantalapiedra, I.R.; Palumbo Fernández, M.; Masseck, T. ¿Cómo medir el impacto de las iniciativas ciudadanas en la sostenibilidad urbana? ACE Archit. City Environ. 2022, 17, 10413.
  40. Wunder, S.; Albrecht, S.; Porsch, L.; Öhler, L. Kriterien zur Bewertung des Transformationspotentials von Nachhaltigkeitsinitiativen; Umweltbundesamt: Dessau-Roßlau, Germany, 2019.
More
© Text is available under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
Upload a video for this entry
Information
Subjects: Urban Studies
Contributors MDPI registered users' name will be linked to their SciProfiles pages. To register with us, please refer to https://encyclopedia.pub/register :
Fanny E. Berigüete Alcántara
,
Inma Rodriguez Cantalapiedra
,
Mariana Palumbo
,
Torsten Masseck
View Times: 184
Revisions: 2 times (View History)
Update Date: 12 Jun 2023
Table of Contents
    1000/1000
    Hot Most Recent
    Video Production Service
    Feedback