A methodology for global citizen deliberation

World Wide Views is a global citizen consultation initiative. A World Wide Views citizen consultation provides decision-makers with a unique insight into the global public opinion on complex governance issues that are debated and negotiated at global venues, such as the UN.

Right Now

Partners in the WWViews Alliance are now in the process of fundraising and mobilizing political support for WWViews on Climate & Energy, planned for 2015 and WWViews 2 on Biodiversity planned for 2016.

Projects

  • Biodiversity 2

    Planned for 2016

  • Climate & Energy

    The next WWViews consultation, planned for 2015

  • Biodiversity

    The second WWViews consultation, held in 2012 with 3000 participating citizens in 25 countries.

  • Global Warming

    The first World Wide Views consultation (and the first-ever global citizen consultation) held in 2009 with 4000 participating citizens in 38 countries

Why World Wide Views?

The WWViews method was developed to help close the widening democratic gap between citizens and policymakers as more and more policymaking takes place on the global level. Worldwide, different cultural and political traditions and practices for the involvement of citizens in political decision-making exist. At the global level, no such tradition or practice has yet developed.

International negotiations about future environmental and other issues are guided by national interests and informed by scientific expertise and advice from various interest groups. No mechanism is in place to allow those ordinary citizens, who are going to live with the future consequences of the political agreements reached (or not), to make their views heard in the policymaking process. As a result, policymakers have no knowledge about the public opinion with regards to the issues they need to make decisions about, and the democratic gap between citizens and policymakers is widening.

The World Wide Views Alliance

World Wide Views is coordinated by the Danish Board of Technology in collaboration with the World Wide Views Alliance (WWViews Alliance); a global network of partners including public councils, think tanks, parliamentary technology assessment institutions, non-governmental civil society organizations and universities.

It is a network of partners sharing the ambition of making public participation an integral part of global governance. The network was established for WWViews on Global Warming and has now been supplemented with a number of new partners worldwide. The collaboration between the partners within the network has allowed for considerable institutional capacity building for countries and organizations not previously practiced in citizen participation. Here is a list of the countries and partners that have participated in World Wide Views on Global Warming (2009) and/or World Wide Views on Biodiversity (2012).

  • Bjørn Bedsted
    Bjørn Bedsted
    Project manager and global coordinator
    +45 3078 5171
  • Søren Gram
    Søren Gram
    Project manager and coordinator
    +45 3078 5167
  • Marie Louise Jørgensen
    Marie Louise Jørgensen
    Project manager
    +45 3078 5173