We support Dutch businesses as well as decentral government bodies dealing with complex European issues and help organisations that want to expand their presence in Europe gain a more European perspective. We also undertake assignments for various European bodies.
Berenschot EU closely monitors developments in Europe and maintains a multifaceted European network. With our office based in Brussels’ European quarter, we are close to the action and extremely well informed.
Most present-day societal challenges have an international or cross border component. On issues like security, migration and economy, different layers of government need to work together more closely than before. Top down decision-making no longer works, as dealing effectively with societal challenges requires recognizing the local context. As a matter of fact, tailor-made solutions can only exist by involving local levels of government and, most importantly, the citizens.
We believe that many of the well-intended initiatives to engage with citizens or help them participate fail, because they either (a) fail to engage with a broad variety of citizens or (b) badly manage the expectations.
In these cases is it unclear or opaque for citizens what happens with their input and as a result they risk losing faith in participation altogether. To avoid this, stakeholder engagement and citizens involvement are crucial. Getting people to engage with governing entities, while using appealing, easy to access formats and intuitive digital platforms. In this approach, participative governance is the cornerstone of modern strategic communication.
Berenschot has a great amount of experience with facilitating and guiding governmental bodies to implement participative governance and helping organisations with implementing strategic communication processes. In our projects we use easy-to-implement, appealing and result-driven participative interventions. Interventions that encourage people to engage, interact and get feedback on what happens/ happened with their input. Think of a training for the municipal council, facilitating concrete initiatives and delivering a so-called participative scan of local democracy. All resulting in the promotion of participation in (local) communities.
