As part of the World Forum for Democracy (WFD) 2020-2021, the Grand Est Region wants to highlight the transfrontier dimension by organising a cycle of conferences to discuss ways of fostering greater civic engagement in this co-operation with neighbouring regions and, in particular, responses to the environmental challenges which are the focus of WFD 2020-21.

The first conference of the cycle was held online on Friday 20 November. It took stock of current civic participation initiatives reaching across the borders of the Grand Est Region (in the French-Belgian Ardennes, Greater Region and Upper Rhine). With this aim in mind, 13 speakers presented their different projects designed to promote citizen involvement. The webinar also aimed to identify the difficulties encountered when carrying out these projects as well as the windows of opportunity they provided.

The conference was the launch pad for a long-term initiative: a series of workshops will be organised in 2021 to consider specific recommendations for enhancing transfrontier citizen participation (in French), with outcomes being presented at the World Forum for Democracy in November 2021.

 First Transfrontier Conference on Democracy (in French)

If you also wish to see the questions that were raised through the chat function and the case studies submitted, you can register here to watch the webinar (in French) on playback.