Practical approaches to participation

This policy brief stems from the Practical Approaches to Participation workshop, held in October 2003 at the Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen. The aim of the workshop was to facilitate a critical dialogue on participatory approaches to environmental decision-making by bringing together practitioners, policy-makers, researchers and people who have taken part in participatory processes. This policy brief challenges the toolkit approach to participation and focuses on the constraints to applying existing best practice approaches. The policy brief is divided into 10 main sections: introduction, context and drivers, contrasting perspectives, approaches to participation, engaging targeting and responding, challenges for participation, ways forward, conclusions, references and useful links, and resources. Some of the main conclusions include the importance of learning form the past, choosing the appropriate levels of public involvement, and ensuring that all stakeholders have equal access and capacity to participate.