Town Hall Meetings as a tool to effectively engage citizens in the work of think tanks and get citizens

excited and involved in the budgetary process

What are Town Hall Meetings (THMs)?

• A facilitated discussion among the general public, where hundreds of people get together and voice their specific concerns or suggestions on predesigned policy options to address the same policy issue.

• An effective way for policy makers and policy researchers to get feedback from final beneficiaries AND engage them in the process of policy design.

• First, decide who your participants are going to be. Does the policy concern everyone, or a particular group of people?

• Once you’ve narrowed down your target group, find effective ways to invite participants to the meeting. These will be context-specific, and can range from personal invitations to leaflets handed out in the streets to media announcements

What do you need to set up a THM? –the participants

What do you need to set up a THM? –the logistics

• A large room with tables that seat 10-12 participants

• A facilitator and a note taker for each table

• A laptop computer for each table connected via LAN to the main server

• A simple software that allows notes taken at each table to feed into the server and be projected on a big screen in live fashion

What do you need to set up a THM? –the content

• A general-public-friendly summary of the policy issue

• A general-public-friendly summary of 3-5 policy alternatives to address the policy issue and what the expected outcomes of the alternative would be

Just two things:

Water

pricing in

Armenia

POLICY

OPTION 1

Water

pricing in

Armenia

POLICY

OPTION 1

What do you need to set up a THM? –the human resources

• Researcher capable of presenting the policy issue in a general-public-friendly manner

• Facilitators who are well aware of the topic, but are capable of keeping their own opinions to themselves

• Note takers who are capable of shaping the often incoherent thoughts into meaningful sentences and not missing any ideas in the process

How do THMs work? – Stage 1. Brainstorming

Researcher presents the policy issue

Facilitators either pass around or read

out one of the proposed policy

alternatives

Participants give feedback to that particular policy

alternative – both positive and

negative!

They then pass to the next policy alternative

NOTE: You don’t compare alternatives at this stage!

How do THMs work? – Stage 2. Voting

• After all policy alternatives have been discussed, every participant votes for the best policy option.

• The results are logged in by the note taker and appear on the large screen

THMs - the many great outcomes• We now know how

our policy alternatives resonate with the public and which of the alternatives is most likely to be well-received by the beneficiaries.

You can’t lose!

If our policy choice as researchers magically coincides with the public “vote”, we have a great leverage in our discussions with policy makers!

If the option we were sure was absolutely best is voted worst, we know why and we can try to make it better!

Most importantly…

A) The citizens start understanding what we are doing

B) They feel part of what we’re doing

C) And ultimately feel their voice may actually influence policy decisions

A fair warning

• Let’s say the goal of your THM is to get feedback on a very specific budget decision within a small community and you’ve got the Community Leader on board who’s willing to go either way depending on the vote. In such a case, go ahead and tell the participants that their input will directly transfer into policy action.

• In all other cases (99.9%), DO NOT make promises, or you risk ruining the A, B, C.