Challenges and Solutions – New Ways of Children’s Participation in Municipal Decisions in the Light of the Case of the Municipality of Lublin and the Municipality of Budapest

Abstract

The involvement of children in decision-making poses a challenge for public bodies. Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child protects the right to express their views. However, in administrative decision-making, it is a challenge to enforce this principle, and the involvement of young people, especially children, in local decision-making is a crucial element of education for civic participation. The literature clearly demonstrates that children can express their views quite effectively on local affairs which impact them directly. It can be more significant in new democracies, where education for active participation in public life is even more important than in countries with long-established democratic traditions and institutions. This paper focuses on the analysis of the framework, challenges, and potential solutions for involving children and young people in municipal decision-making processes in Poland and Hungary. It should be noted that both countries belong to the relatively young democracies and have been building their democratic local government systems since the 1990s. The paper analyses the first regulations and solutions on the involvement of young people in local democracy, which were mainly institutionally centred and based on the representation of the children. We seek to demonstrate both the advantages and limitations of these representation-based solutions. Based on the limitations of these tools, new and more deliberative forms have evolved in Poland and Hungary. These developments have been linked to the digitalisation of decision-making processes and the digital environment that surrounds young people. These models, however, have challenges, and even these e-solutions have strong limitations. Another important issue is the analysis of opportunities for the participation of particularly vulnerable groups of children in these initiatives, especially children with disabilities and migrant children. The article also explores the challenges and opportunities associated with their inclusion. An important part of the initiatives discussed is the development of effective solutions. Therefore, the authors focus on the challenges of piloting such tools and institutions. Based on the development of the former solutions, the article formulates policy recommendations aimed at strengthening children’s participation at the local level in new democracies. These recommendations are based on the experiences of the European Youth Capital 2023 project in Lublin and on policies promoting the involvement of children in municipal decision-making in Budapest. In addition, one of the bases of the presentation is a current CLAP (“Children’s Involvement in Local Affairs for Active Participation”) project, which aims to enhance children’s participation based on a piloted in cooperation with local authorities.