Participatory project funding for grassroots climate projects: Experiences from Switzerland

Description:

Speaker: Lars Kaiser, Urban Equipe

Since 2019, processes based on the participatory budget format have been taking place in numerous Swiss cities as a result of digital transformation and the associated smart city strategies - most of them using decidim. While annual processes have been carried out in Lausanne since 2019, in other cities (Zurich, Aarau, Thun, Lucerne) they have so far been one-off pilot projects.

Unlike in the international context, where ideas submitted by the population are implemented by a city administration, the projects carried out in Switzerland require the idea providers to implement them themselves. They thus create a new way of promoting neighbourhood projects and neighbourhood networking, often addressing issues in the realm of climate adaptation or reduction in carbon footprints.

The lightning talk provides an insight into the findings of these processes, their similarities and differences and attempts to define success factors for the implementation of participatory budgets and highlighting ways on how these processes can be used in tackling the challenges of the ongoing climate crisis. Urban Equipe has been able to gain in-depth experience with this instrument since 2019. It acted as project organiser for the "Quartieridee Wipkingen" (2020/21) and as process facilitator for the "Stadtidee Zürich" (2021/22), the "Stadtidee Aarau" (2022/23) and the "Klima-Idee Thun" (2023/24).

Language of the session: English

Logistical needs: I would be presenting this as a slideshow in Keynote from a Mac Laptop