Citizens Council with more women and residents of the north and center of the city
This week’s edition, which takes place for the first time of the Lisbon Citizens’ Council, is an idea presented by Carlos Moedas during the campaign for local authorities and formalized as mayor on January 27th. The topic on the table at this meeting, which will not take place in the Paços do Concelho hall, will be climate change and will be debated by a noble panel of 50 people drawn to represent the city’s population.
The first step for this panel was the registration period, which ended on April 22, and during the 2351 people chosen what their interest was in participating in this initiative. This file has been edited to remove the, already, the data name, the contact of the people. a file with an alphanumeric identifier, which does not include the name, only the age, the parish, the level of educational qualifications, or gender and professional situation”, explains to DN Manuel Arriaga, from the Citizens’ Forum, a civic association that is a partner Lisbon Chamber in this initiative and which was responsible for the creation of the methodology of the draw and its realization.
With the use of a Software in open code of the Sortition Foundation, in this type of assemblies, data on the five parameters of the registered people were prepared and, using the Census numbers, the demographic profile of the population of Lisbon. “And what the Software generates a sample with the specified number of participants, which tries to mirror as much as possible the composition of the panel vis-à-vis the general population”, says the professor at the University of Nova.
As such, the 50-person panel that will participate in this weekend’s Citizens’ Council will be made up of 26 women, 23 men and one non-binary person. With regard to age, 13% of participants are between 15 and 24 years old, 58% between 25 and 64 years old and 29% over 65 years old. Of these participants, 46% have basic education, 17% secondary education and 38 % have reached higher education. The overwhelming majority (75%) are employed, while 21% are students and 4% are unemployed.
The fifth parameter was the zone, and although in the registration form people have placed their parish, no draws were used as five large areas that the council itself uses to divide the city. “If we invest in slicing the population correctly by parishes, there is no longer a way to achieve good representation in other aspects. “, stressed Manuel Arriaga.
As a result of the draw carried out by the Citizens’ Forum, and trying to mirror the 2021 Census, 27% of participants will come from North Lisbon, 10% from West Lisbon, 21% from East Lisbon, 25% from Lisbon Center and 17% of the Historic Center.
Registration reopens on Monday
These 50 people now have two working days ahead of them, which will start tomorrow at 9 am with an intervention by the Mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, and will only end on Sunday after 6 pm.
According to a source from the Lisbon municipality, he told DN, “the first part of the work will be dedicated to learning about the theme and ideas with the councilors, who will make the connection between the “macro” theme and people’s daily lives”. One of these advisors is Júlia Seixas, professor at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in the areas of Environment, Energy and Climate Change, who will explain the global challenges impacting the lives of citizens. Pedro Martins Barata, coordinator of the team that prepared the Roadmap for Carbon Neutrality 2050, is another speaker and will talk about the challenges linked to energy production in cities.
Roberta Medina, vice president of Rock in Rio, will speak as a climate activist about what is best and worst in other cities around the world. Finally, and on behalf of the Lisbon City Council, Catarina Freitas will explain “how climate change is impacting the daily lives of Lisboners and what will happen in the future, also addressing what CML does and plans to do, focusing on obstacles that we are encountering”, adds the same source.
Days will be dedicated to the deliberation and elaboration of proposals, and those that leave this meeting, which will be held in The streaming of an architecture, can be designed and adapted to citizens by Carlos Moedas or his representative. The Lisbon Chamber undertakes to make the results of this initiative public, as well as to “proceed with the proposals” and “communicate the progress made”, source of the municipality.
Registration for the Citizen’s Council, whose data or topic is not yet located, opens on Monday, May 16th.