Public Participation is mandated by law, but not all “Public Participations” are equal. Two County Governments preparing a policy to promote employment for the youth might follow different paths; one of them might bring a random group of citizens into a ballroom of an upscale hotel to share the policy as it has been written by a few experts, while the other government decides to reach out from the very beginning to all the youth organizations and representatives of the business sectors with the greatest employment potential to ensure that all key stakeholders actively contribute to the policy formulation.
This page outlines some of the more general considerations that might help distinguish between a mostly formal “public event” and an effective and meaningful process that represents an exercise in democratic governance
