Cascais won the Best Participation Practice of the Decade Award, as part of the 23rd Conference of the IOPD

Cascais has just won the Best Participation Practice of the Decade Award. A distinction awarded by RAP - Rede de Autarquias Participativas (Network of Participatory Local Authorities) that highlights the Cascais Participatory Budget project, which has held 12 editions since 2011. The award ceremony took place last Friday in Valongo, as part of the 23rd OIDP Conference - International Observatory of Participatory Democracy, held from 17 to 19 October, under the theme ‘Populist threats: building democratic resilience with participatory communities’ and at which Cascais was a strong presence. "This award is not just another prize, but a true recognition of the power of our community", José d'Almeida, Councillor for Participation and Citizenship at Cascais City Council, said at the ceremony, adding that the Best Participation Practice of the decade award "is proof that citizen participation can indeed transform local reality and over the years, Cascais has been a living example of how collective action and collaboration between citizens and political power can shape a better future for all." RAP's recognition took into account not only the robustness of OPCascais, which at municipal level is run by a department that mobilises a team of 25 technicians, but above all the growth of this project, which since 2011 has been mobilising more and more citizens: "it has grown from 7,000 people in 2011 to 70,000 people from Cascais who today have a voice and actively participate through the PB in defining the destiny of our community," recalled the mayor on receiving the award in Valongo. With a total investment to date of 57 million euros decided directly by the citizens, translated into 241 projects that have been realised or are yet to be realised, the Cascais PB ‘is today a benchmark not only in Portugal, but also a model of democratic participation that inspires cities all over the world. Our example is being sought out and replicated, and that fills us with pride,’ José d'Almeida emphasised. Several Cascais projects in the spotlight at the 23rd IOPD Conference. The award ceremony was the culmination of intense days of work on multiple themes, at a conference that for many years has been a meeting for hundreds of technicians from all over the world to share and present projects on various panels. The inaugural session of the international conference was attended by José Manuel Ribeiro, President of IOPD 2024 and Mayor of Valongo; Carola Gunnarsson, Vice-President of the European Section of UCLG; Emilia Saiz, General Secretary of UCLG; Konstantinos Koukas, thematic spokesperson for the European Local Democracy Week for the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities; Cas Mudde, Keynote Speaker, Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF, Professor of International Affairs; and David Pontes, Director of Público newspaper. As the organisers state in their concept note, this conference is "the right place to present innovative proposals for building and consolidating resilient democracies around the world’, recalling that ‘it is because they fully embody the ancestral genetic material of democracies that participatory processes represent in themselves the virtues of democratic systems and their rules and processes".