Collaborative governance is a type of governance process that ensures that those people who have interests in the public policy issue are directly involved in a way which allows for them to provide input and recommendations.

The typical participants in a collaborative governance process are government agencies, community groups, organizations, businesses, nonprofits, individuals and First Nations.

The collaborative processes usually involve thefollowing components: sharing of background information, gathering input fromparticipants, an analysis of the input, the development of various options, aprocess to determine how the group will form consensus and the provision of recommendationson the issue.

Certain issues may bemore appropriate for collaborative processes and their success seems to dependon variables such as the history of the issue, how long the issues has been aconflict or concern, incentives for participation, power and resource imbalances,and the conflict resolutions skills of the facilitator.  

Policy makers arestarting to use the concept of collaborative governance for many reason includedthe following: to ensure that people are well informed about the issues, tobuild relationships and trust with various types of participants, to save time and money by addressing concerns versus avoiding the conflicts and allowing them to escalate, and to find better ways to collective learn and solve problems.

Over the last two decades I have observed a growing interest and acceptance of the collaborative processes within governments.  The issues facing public policy decision makers today are complex and involve diverse stakeholder groups. The use of collaborative processes has proven to be an effective way to address these types of issues for the betterment of all involved.

Collaborative governance processes have been proven to be effective in the development and implementation of public policy issues.

So why not use a collaborative process to address an upcoming public policy issue within your government?

All for now, Gillian