Part Three :
Report on the Participatory Process Used for the
Evaluation
and Future of the Alliance
EIFE and delibera.info-alliance
e-forums, and Porto Alegre Meeting
March 2002 - April 2003
6. ON COMMUNICATION AND PARTICIPATION
Interpretation of the 35 appraisals and 29 comments.
A large majority agreed that the strength of the Alliance in the
field of communication and participation has been in the methods
it has developed, particularly the multilingual electronic
forums. Also, the Directory of the Alliance
has been an important achievement for the construction of the Alliance.
In the new stage, there was a large consensus on
the need for a qualitative improvement in the degree of
information dispensed to the Allies. Communication should be permanent
and should have someone specific to stir it up and organize it.
Some comments qualified this statement by pointing out the need
give more priority to the relevance and quality of the information
than to its quantity. One possibility to do this would be through
the Web site as has been done so far, but also through the timetables,
final documents, and testimonies of the workgroups, etc. The aim
should be a decentralized management of the content on the
Web site, although some still underscore the need for organization
of the content.
Moving in this direction, we should look
for the easiest way for everyone to receive information.
Sometimes it is not necessary to receive the same information by
e-mail and by regular mail.
There was also some discussion about the Alliance's need for decentralized
communication: we not only need common or compatible tools
and methods, they also have to be able to be managed mostly in a
decentralized way. Among the comments, however, there were some
who insisted that it was essential that communication should be
shared and that it was necessary that the groups write up their
information (a correspondents' network) and that a central summarization
unit collate the information.
Also, the immense majority believed that we should
increase participation and improve the participation methodologies
(according to one comment: as much in the Internet forums as in
the preparation and holding of meetings, as much for the basic themes
as for organization-related decisions).
With one unfavorable appraisal, the training
of cross-cultural facilitators to improve participation and meeting
processes was deemed necessary. Beyond this agreement,
there was also a comment underscoring the importance of evaluating
the role of the facilitators and of establishing contract specifications
and a Charter of Principles for them.
There was also much agreement on the idea that
every group and every active Ally should find the means
to improve their capacity for remote discussion and meetings,
through the Internet, so as not to be always conditioned by the
difficult and expensive financing of trips and meetings. Moving
in this direction, there was emphasis in a comment on the need to
help groups of Allies who don't have the technical and financial
means to do this.
There was also agreement on the idea that the
backers who wish to support the Alliance process should
focus their support on the groups of Allies trying to develop
an autonomous but articulated form of such communication and participation
tools. One comment also underscored that physical meetings
are also important and complementary.
Although there was no actual opposition, there
was a majority that took no stand (“I don't know/I do not
understand”) for the following points:
- To continue distributing Caravan regularly
to everyone. The possibility of distributing it to the Allies who
request it was suggested.
- To continue defining methodologies for
a strong cross-cultural dialogue. The doubts seemed to
be mainly about the immediate election of persons in charge of doing
this.
- A paradox: just as the FPH announced
that it was time for the different groups to gain more autonomy,
the management of some tools such as the online Directory
and the Web site were put back in the hands of the same FPH.
(In November 2002 an International Coordination
Committee of the Alliance Web site was constituted to work through
an electronic forum [webteam]. Furthermore, a more decentralized
management of the Directory is underway. The electronic forums work
autonomously).
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