Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/42647

JaLCDOI : 10.14943/43263

KEYWORDS : World Wide Views;WWViews;facilitation;facilitator;global warming

This paper discusses the issues about facilitation of public participation meetings, taking World Wide Views on Global Warming (WWViews) as an example. Held in 38 countries around the world on the same day in September 2009, WWViews was an unprecedented challenge of science communication. In each country, 100 ordinary citizens were invited and divided into small groups to deliberate on difficult questions about global climate change in an internationally uniformed method. After the event, we conducted inquiry surveys aimed at both the participants and facilitators who joined in the Japanese meeting of WWViews in order to examine how effectively the participating citizens were facilitated in the deliberation process. The overall evaluation by the participants was high, especially with a high satisfaction level of group facilitation and meeting procedure. However, some participants had difficulty in feeling something familiar to the discussion topics relevant to current international negotiation, such as short-term reduction targets of green house gases and the frameworks of assistance to developing countries. The facilitators also reported in the post-event survey that they found it difficult to bridge the gap between the interests of participants and the agenda, mainly because of the uniformed rule to strictly require the facilitators of neutrality and prohibit them from giving additional information to the participants. Impartialness of facilitators is an essential requirement for deliberative exercises, but applying too strict rules would work negatively. Instead of confining the facilitators to a narrow role of "neutral chairpersons," it is necessary to regard facilitators as "experts of mediation" and let them actively serve as interpreters between the everyday life of participating citizens and the world of international negotiations.