Panel IV – The Role of Civil Society Organizations for Action-Oriented Research Projects
At the Trialog 2021 Conference: Changing Voices, PolyUrbanWaters, together with the SURE Facilitation and Synthesis Research Project and Build4People discussed the role of civil society organisations in action research. During the session, several projects of the funding priority Sustainable Development of Urban Regions (SURE) supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) introduced their case-study related approaches and highlighted the role of CSOs while elaborating on their limits in action. Short presentations of the Build4People (Cambodia), PolyUrbanWaters (Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos) and SURE Facilitation (South-East-Asia and China) projects lead to a moderated discussion. Questions raised by the moderator included reflections on the significance of CSOs within the SURE consortium with about 150 institutions involved in total and their continuously evolving role in regard of urban planning and of sustainable development of urban regions. Which specific contributions provide CSOs to promote good urban green governance, to increase of public participation, to strengthen local capacities and to accelerate the transformation from rather static master planning towards process orientated and inclusive action planning approaches?
