The Participatory Brasil platform marks a revival of participatory democracy in Brazil, with 1.4 million citizens helping to set priorities on national policies to combat hunger, deforestation, and climate change. Despite its success in encouraging widespread engagement and popular participation, it remains unclear whether the Brazilian state has the capacity to fully implement the ambitious proposals that have emerged.

Almost two years after the launch of ChatGPT propelled the topic of AI into the spotlight, we take stock of AI in digital participation tools. What features are well established, what is in development, and what are visions for the future? As it turns out, the functionalities in actual widespread use are few but tools in development and visions for the future are many.

The Bpart platform has helped shape some of Europe’s most established citizen participation processes. In 2017, they worked with several partners to create a platform that makes open city budget data more accessible to citizens. We spoke to their CEO Bert Hendrickx about the importance of transparency for democracy, and the challenges in getting governments and citizens involved.

At a time when the impact of citizen participation is being questioned everywhere, the Belgian Deliberative Committees offers a solution: creating closer ties between participatory and representative democracy.

Citizen participation is well established at the local and national levels – but can it work internationally too? What new challenges arise when applying it in a global context?

Launched in 2020, the EUComMeet project has spent the last four years exploring new ways of involving citizens in the decision-making process. On 26 June, they held their final event “Just Transition & Participatory Democracy: Lessons Learned from H2020 EuComMeet Project” in Brussels.

CitizenLab is changing its name to Go Vocal. The participation platform has also announced significant investment in AI-based solutions.

AI could simplify the process of running Citizens’ Assemblies operating across borders and language barriers. But should we trust big tech with new democratic processes?

The French Citizens’ Convention on the End of Life recently ended. Make.org introduced a new AI tool to make its proceedings and outcome more accessible.

Urban planning tools need to be adapted to the needs of the local community. U_CODE’s pilot project in Nakuru, Kenya, is trying to make this a reality.