The Carnegie Institute has just published a report on the value of Citizens Assemblies a part of their Engaging Democracy Programme. **Key Findings**  - Citizens’ assemblies can improve trust in democracy and decision-making, but **only when they are well designed and lead to real change.**  - Participatory processes, like citizens’ assemblies, can help to restore trust by **giving** **people more voice and choice in decisions**.  - The success of these processes depends on **how they’re designed** and the **follow-up with participants** - people need to see that their input has real impact. **Elected members and decision-makers need more exposure to these processes** to understand their benefits and to see the quality of debate, ideas and practical solutions they produce. [Engaging Democracy: Programme Insight Summary - Carnegie UK Trust](https://carnegieuktrust.org.uk/publications/engaging-democracy-programme-insight-summary/)

There’s lots of work going on in this field now, and this report echos one of my key concerns: that the assemblies need to be well designed, well facilitated and integrated into a network or system that can empower it, e.g. as a decision-making system within a social movement, or embedded as a public-commons partnership (PCP) with the local council.\ \ [Citizens’ Assembly UK](https://citizensassembly.co.uk/), [Sortition Foundation](https://www.sortitionfoundation.org/) and [The Peoples’ Assembly](https://thepeoplesassembly.org.uk/) have been operating for quite a while, whilst [Extinction Rebellion](https://extinctionrebellion.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/XR-PeoplesManual.pdf), [The Humanity Project](https://humanityproject.uk/) and Assemble (emerging from Just Stop Oil) are relatively new to the scene and the quality/integrity of the assemblies can vary dramatically. \ \ I feel People’s Assemblies and Citizen’s Assemblies are vital tools to widen participation and deepen democracy, but we need to pay careful attention to how we prepare and deliver them. \ \ The [Global People’s Assembly](https://www.peoplesassembly.global/en/) in NY is happening from Sunday (you can participate online!)\ \ Thanks so much for sharing this report [Jean Ball](mention:cd887a99-5f0e-4a99-8333-1e3511ba6a23 "/u/jeanball/") - I think it’s a really useful piece of work with very easy to read key findings, considerations and conclusions :dizzy: