For instance, cities tap into their communities’ wisdom through community engagement initiatives. The idea behind community engagement is that community members should have some power over the decisions that affect their lives. And even though the terms are often used interchangeably, community engagement is not entirely the same as citizen participation.
Community engagement versus community participation
Both concepts might seem similar, but they have differing views of the role that the community should play. The key difference between participation and engagement is that community engagement requires an active, intentional dialogue between residents and public decision-makers whereas community participation can come from community members only.
Local governments vs. citizens
Community engagement and participation have the same goal: improving public service deliveries and policy projects.
However, both are not initiated by the same actors. Community engagement is a top-down initiative and is instated by a governmental body such as a city or a town. The public officials are the ones encouraging community members to discuss, assess policies and contribute to projects. By contrast, community participation stems from the community members themselves, and is thus a bottom-up initiative.
Formal vs. informal
With community engagement, governments involve community members in the decision-making process of public policies. To do so, they have to provide them with tools to consult and access public information, discuss with elected representatives and monitor the implementation of the projects.
As a consequence, if a governments aims to engage with its community members, it must integrate this engagement to its entire governance strategy. Only then, community engagement becomes a formalized procedure delimited by rules established by the city.
Community participation is a key instrument for community members to voice their opinions about public policies, but it’s a rather informal process. It doesn’t require the government to come up with official rules since it is not its responsibility. However, because it’s unofficial, it cannot be applied to all policy projects. For instance, it is difficult to apply it to larger policie such as a participatory budget, that requires a higher level of inclusiveness and awareness.
Get started with community engagement
Do you want to tap into your residents’ collective wisdom? Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today to discuss how we can help you get started with digital engagement!
This article is a part of our “what’s the difference?” series. Browse through the others here:
- “What’s the difference between deliberative and participatory democracy?”
- “What is the difference between artificial and collective intelligence?”
- “What’s the difference between “Civic Tech” and “GovTech”?”
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