publicatie

Een praktische gids voor co-productie bij ‘nature-based solutions’

Datum 25 apr, 2022

(deze gids is in het Engels)

New initiatives to address urban challenges can feel like a gamble. Will it work for all of city governance? What will the community think? Enter co-production, a new way to govern transformative solutions (like nature-based solutions), by including different types of knowledge and actors on an equal basis. This free, practical guidebook helps you to collaborate, discuss & design with unusual suspects, and together deliver on concrete outputs for your city.

An urban garden in a local preschool, by and for the community. Or a disused river valley that is redeveloped together with nearby neighborhoods & local businesses. These are nature-based solutions which help cities with the complex challenges they face today, like climate change, pollution, and (mental) health issues.

Nature-based solutions address complex urban problems which have no quick fix: it’s about finding integrated solutions for multiple complex challenges. Like so many other aspects of justice and sustainability transitions, these require an approach that benefits from a diverse set of actors working together, being open to new and different perspectives and always on the look-out for shared benefits for multiple (both societal and policy) goals.

Co-production is that approach. Among other things, it…

  • boosts innovation – by exchanging ideas on needs and solutions in an open rather than predefined way.
  • contributes to democratization of decision-making.
  • spurs new relationships and partnerships between actors that otherwise would not work together.
  • produces tangible outputs, such as: new visions; new ways of framing problems; and innovative solutions, like new business models.

“In Poznań, we have managed to modernize over 20 preschool playgrounds into nature-oriented playgrounds with the help of co-production”

Agnieszka Dziubala, City of Poznań

 

As part of the Connecting Nature project, we have created a guidebook that takes you through how to apply co-production to your context in four steps, using six guiding principles. It features visuals, ready-to-use tools, and concrete examples from city-makers across Europe. It’s written specifically to support urban planners and policymakers, in a style that we hope to be clear and inviting, rather than overly academic or intimidating. It should also prove interesting for others interested in urban co-production processes to do with nature-based solutions (like NGOs).

Authors
Carien van der Have,  Katharina Hölscher, Marleen Lodder

Connecting Nature is funded by the
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the
European Union Grant Agreement No 730222

Download the publication
Click here to download the full handbook