GEtCoheSive – Strengthening participatory administrative work

Citizens across Europe can play an active role in shaping politics; there are numerous local and regional offers and opportunities for participation. However, refugees and migrants are often not given sufficient consideration, even though many of them want to contribute their expertise and experience and be involved in decision-making.

The “GEtCoheSive” (Governance Enhancement for Cohesive Societies) project develops and tests participatory formats to better involve refugees and citizens with a history of migration in particular in administrative processes.

The project links seven regions and cities in four EU member states. In each region, a local consortium consisting of administration, civil society and universities is working together. The aim is to strengthen participatory approaches in administration through pilot projects.
The overall European consortium exchanges all the approaches and experiences gathered, compares and evaluates them and then develops recommendations for action.
Three pilot projects are being carried out in Berlin:

1. New Berliners’ Council: under the leadership of the Technical University (TU) Berlin, 30 Berliners with different language backgrounds exchange views on climate policy issues.
2. Improvement of psychosocial care for refugees: Key players in psychosocial care in Berlin analyze central challenges of refugee-specific psychosocial care and develop possible solutions.
3. Better work opportunities for women with refugee experience, project of the Initiative Selbstständiger Migrantinnen e.V. for the implementation of native-language training courses (Farsi, Arabic) on labor market-related topics.

The respective Berlin pilots, as well as the pilot projects in the other partner regions, will subsequently be evaluated, processed and the chosen participatory approach critically reflected upon in order to make the potentials and pitfalls of participatory administrative action applicable to other actors.

The “GEtCoheSive” project runs from April 2023 to March 2026 and is funded by the EU INTERREG Central Europe funding program.