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Designing Policies for a Wellbeing Economy arrow Policies arrow Co-creating new policies for a wellbeing economy

Co-creating new policies for a wellbeing economy

How can you design policies based on long-term benefits instead of short-term challenges? How can you support the co-creation of new policies by your society?
purpose

Purpose

To co-create new and innovative economic policies that to support current and future wellbeing

As you embrace a more holistic approach to economic policymaking, it will be helpful to take advantage of the expertise and lived experiences in your societies to co-create new wellbeing economy policies.

By providing space for various stakeholders to meaningfully engage in co-creating new policy initiatives, e.g., piloting projects or proposing ideas for policy initiatives, you will not only find innovative and context specific ideas, but also enhance the level of trust people have in government.

Resources

To find the resources from all of these chapters, please visit the tools and resources page

Co-creation in public policy

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Community forums

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Citizen assemblies

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Focus groups

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Deliberative polling

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Participatory budgeting

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Wellbeing budgets

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Deliberative policy development

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Public policy conferences

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Citizen conferences

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Town meeting

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Examples

Decidim Barcelona

Following the 2009 global recession, Barcelona developed a technological platform to gather citizens’ input on economic recovery efforts. Dedicim Barcelona is a web-based platform where citizens could submit policy proposals and help to design and monitor the participatory process of selection.

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Iceland—Economic transformation policies

After the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland undertook a participatory process of "crowd sourcing" ideas for a re-draft of its constitution. This was based on principles of transparency, equality, welfare, and the national ownership of natural resources.

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Paris—Participatory budgeting

The city of Paris has introduced participatory budgeting as a way for local people to have a say in how municipal funds are spent. Residents of Paris can submit their project ideas to be funded by the city.

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Ireland—Citizens' assembly

The Irish Citizens' Assembly brought together 99 citizens to decide on the most pressing issues in their society. Through this, they agreed on 13 climate recommendations to make Ireland a leader in tackling climate change.

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South Korea—My budget

South Korea introduced a National Participatory Budgeting initiative, "My Budget", in 2018. Citizens can submit project ideas to be reviewed by ministries then sent to a citizens committee, which reviews the proposals before voting alongside online participants for the proposals they will send to the National Assembly.

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Tips

  • Revisit your wellbeing vision, goals, and values when designing new policies and programmes.
  • Consider how different policy instruments (regulations, incentives, disincentives, commons, information, public provision) could be used to achieve the same outcomes, before selecting the one(s) most appropriate for your context.
  • Recognise that expertise comes in many forms and engage wellbeing economy experts as well as ‘unusual suspects’ who can provide knowledge and insights when co-creating new policy instruments.
  • Identify and co-create new pilot projects and policies with communities through participatory budgeting, community forums, public policy conferences, etc.
  • Spend additional time exploring how to develop policies that can promote behaviours that may have traditionally been outside the realm of standard economic thinking (e.g. generosity, environmental stewardship, cooperation, etc.)
  • Make special efforts to empower those who have been historically marginalised in policy areas to co-create initiatives (e.g., engage the homeless in housing policy, prisoners in prison reform policy, etc.).
  • When selecting policies, consider the community’s perspective regarding the legitimate role and scope of government. This will help to determine if, for example, if a regulation or incentive programme would be more appropriate.
  • Prioritise policies and initiatives that have positive benefits for a variety of wellbeing goals.
  • Validate the proposed policy package with communities, implementing agencies, and stakeholders.