The challenge

Many people feel cynical about the policy-making process. They feel alienated from it, and lack hope that they can make a meaningful contribution to social change. A shift, however, is possible. It begins with embracing the knowledge, skills, experience, energy and potential for change that already exists in our communities and organizations, and building capacities across sectors to move together into action.

This shift cannot come without hard work at capacity building. We need to create processes that will allow and encourage meaningful mutual engagement at all stages of the policy-making process. There is a need to develop structures that are citizen-driven and that use a holistic approach to address issues of health and social well-being. There is a need to recognize that creating public policy is not solely the domain of the powerful or influential; meaningful participation in the creation of policy is a responsibility and right of all sectors and each individual.

Success in linking community experience to public policy development will both require and be demonstrated by:

• community development – communities identifying and drawing on their own strengths and resources, and voicing their concerns effectively
• responsive government – governments seeking out community participation in policy development and planning with communities to share power and responsibilities
• social and cultural diversity – governments recognizing the need for equity in the delivery of services, and all sectors building relationships that respect and embrace diversity
• economic development – empowered communities creating local wealth and influencing external economic forces, and governments addressing financial power imbalances by allocating resources to allow all sectors to participate in policy processes
• infrastructure – the resources for supporting community development and enhancing communities’ capacities to create wealth and well-being
• environment and natural resource management – enhancing environments, and protecting and reversing the degradation of natural environments.

This snapshot of what success would look like reflects the need for holistic approaches to societal well-being and policy-making processes. The complexity of issues and the many players involved show the need for collaborative and coordinated processes.

Examples of collaborative and coordinated holistic approaches are available. Knowledge of policy, community and organizational development exists. Resources for building skills in communication, problem solving and collaboration are abundant.

The challenge for communities is to develop the capacity to contribute to policy processes. The challenges for systems and policy makers include valuing and recognizing community experience, developing policy processes that involve community at all phases and valuing and respecting all individuals in the dialogue to find solutions. Systems and policy makers must develop capacities for listening to and using community contributions. All sectors must work together to develop capacities for holistic approaches to addressing issues that impact the health and well-being of all society.

 

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