Joke Koning, Mayor of the Borough East Amsterdam

Paper for the Workshop Political Participation, 26 November 2001

 

Political Participation in Stadsdeel Oost Watergraafsmeer

 

 

Amsterdam is divided into 13 boroughs with their own elected councils. The borough of Oost/Watergraafsmeer has a population of 58,000, 35 percent of whom are migrants. The largest migrant groupings are 9 percent from the former Dutch colony of Surinam, 9 per cent from Morocco and 5 percent from Turkey.

 

Between 1990 and 1994 we made an inventory of the real social issues and demands. We did this with a whole range of organisations, institutions and local people. And with them, we got the issues down on paper in a logical, businesslike fashion.

 

Stage one on the road to better insights was to build a good dialogue with the migrant organisations. So, for the initial two years we were talking to self-organizations that already had some sort of grant or subsidy; in fact there were three of them.

 

At the same time we had intensive consultations with the general (public) institutions. The agenda here was how their offering could best be customised to meet demands from the various communities - and how to enhance coverage of migrant groupings.

 

And, sure enough, as the process warmed-up, more and more organisations started knocking on the door. They had ideas, they had initiatives to help emancipate a given target group.

 

Then, as the budget allocated more financial resources, a new need arose: namely more structure in consultation, and criteria for granting subsidies.

 

Increasingly it was clear to us that activities by migrant bodies were a major factor in equal opportunities for the various migrant groupings.

 

Agreements on subsidies were set down clearly in writing. The same went for the relationship with welfare and health care institutions. The consultation process was formalised in 1995 with the creation of BOMO . the Dutch initials for . Administrative Consultation for Migrant Bodies. . with a board including public organisations and district officials.

 

This was much more than . window-dressing. . We wanted a powerful, cohesive team that would grow and develop.

Two vital objectives were to obtain maximum, useful information for policymaking, and help for the migrant organisations to reach and represent their grass roots.

Hence, BOMO would boost the process towards equality. And, self-evidently, it would also put responsibility for integration and equality of migrant groups in East/Watergraafsmeer on the shoulders of these organisations.

 

But, to be successful, any policy around migrants had to be integrated within Oost/Watergraafsmeer. s overall policy package. To this end . in consultation with BOMO - we drafted a memorandum of policy objectives and intentions. This was called: . Dawn in the East. (. t Daget in den Oosten). 

 

The message was that . Dawn in the East. was not a separate policy, in a separate department, in the portfolio of a separate alderman. It is the special focus . within all other policy areas - on migrants.

 

In practice there were three key target areas:

- education, welfare and youth policy

- employment

- involvement

 

After three years it was time to check .

 

ONE               on how satisfied people were with the policy and

TWO             how it was performing in terms of objectives

 

Evaluation would also show where improvements were required . and how.  The evaluation (carried out by IMES) had this to say about the migrant organisations, and I quote:

 

. In any event, the practice of involving organisations and migrants in the policy of the borough has been a success. The borough has succeeded in bringing the migrant organisations together on a regular basis and its administration is open and highly accessible. The involved organisations are aware that the regular consultations offer a number of benefits. They are recognised and kept informed and are able to expand their network of contacts. Even so, there are several areas of discontent and confusion. The most substantial point of criticism centres on the less-than-clear division of tasking and responsibilities between migrant organisations and the borough on one side and migrant organisations and general institutions on the other..

 

 

To realise a good working partnership the BOMO consultation set-up had to be improved. It had to be more structured. Indeed, the only way for the migrant organisations to apply political influence was by enabling participation and input of advice.

 

It is the job of the borough to see that the preconditions are in place and that they are optimal. Now, with the evaluation report we could take the next step.

 

The second important point of the evaluation was that while the memorandum . Dawn in the east. had been a major source of inspiration and had set a lot of wheels in motion . as a policy document it had been less effective.

 

The creation of the document had not obtained the broad political consensus one needs for an effective policy document. In practice the input and implementation were too one-sided, and came from a single alderman. It lacked a solid base in the civil service apparatus. Indeed, the civil servants had no real sense of being tasked to implement the document.

 

Third in the list of important points was the lack of a real action plan to get the general public involved in politics. In plain language that means voting and getting involved in political institutions.

 

We discussed the evaluation with the BOMO partners during a weekend session. Our weekend meeting identified the need to up-date policy across a wide range of issues and . where necessary . to develop new policy.

 

The result was a policy plan with the title: . migrants in focus. .

 

It. s important in the plan that we aim to steer in terms of content and results, so that the migrant organisations take a significant role in the designing integral policy, which is the objective of Oost/Watergraafsmeer.

And to this end we seek a package of measures to reinforce these organisations (like enhancing the level of professionalism and providing subsidies).

 

Alongside additional professional support for these organisations, the BOMO consultative process gets backing in the form of a project manager and a secretary. BOMO members also receive financial compensation.  On top of this there are a number of dedicated working groups covering a range of policy areas - with back up from civil servants. These groups can make proposals to the borough, via the BOMO.

 

The education working group has been in place somewhat longer. They have developed a proposal to improve parents. participation in secondary education, by appointing a contact person at the actual school. This project was enabled thanks to our council budget for the year 2000.

 

One of the new groups focuses on the improvement and development of information and communication. These are treated as crucial for boosting migrant. s involvement within the council area.

 

This includes targeted activities by a committee of local political parties to boost involvement in public life and politics.

 

Indeed, as far as the council. s overall policy is concerned:

 

-                     its own workforce

-                     the committees and boards running the various organisations

-                     and its elected politicians

 

& . should all reflect the migrant/cultural mix in Oost / Watergraafsmeer.

 

In practice a lot still remains to be done. Take the demographics of our own workforce, for example - or the make-up of the elected councillors.

 

The conference held by the council in January last year took a first, systematic look at political participation by the individual citizen. We examined ways to provide migrant organisations with the means to politically educate their grass roots.

 

The project group, made up of people from all the political parties in the council, developed an approach to improve the passive and active political involvement of migrant groupings. In turn, this plan of approach was integrated into our . Focus on migrants. policy document, finalised by the council in December of last year.

 

The first phase of the project political participation has been rounded off: this involved the course of candidate councillors and a series of information meetings organised by migrant organisations.

 

The plan of approach was on a project-basis, with three . angles. :

 

-          a course for people from migrant communities who wanted to get involved in politics and/or to become a councillor;

 

-          meetings to boost contacts between politicians and migrants, and the . native Dutch. population. (The idea here was to increase the migrant turn-out at the elections in 2002);

 

-          training in intercultural communication for councillors and political party leaders. The aim here was to enhance the performance of new election candidates.

 

And, political parties on the neighbourhood council are doing their best to see that their list of candidates for the 2002 elections matches better with local demographics. That means at least 9 out of 27 seats held by migrants. Right now the figure is 2 of the 27 seats.

 

The course on involvement in politics and public life has now been rounded off. 45 people started and 21 made it to the end and earned a certificate. There were 14 sessions dealing with political skills like debating, dealing with the media and presentation techniques. The people on the course also spent time as interns with one of the parties in the council . taking part in party meetings. And, as members of a given party in the council they could also deal with issues in committee meetings . with a councillor as coach.

 

The 21 finalists all joined a political party, and most are standing for the borough elections in 2002. Others have taken an interest in other aspects of public life . like administration of a public organisation.

 

The main reasons for dropping out were that people didn. t realise the time involved, or were not so politically ambitious after all.

 

What we learned was that - alongside the basic knowledge people get from the course . what really counts is the individual coaching they get as interns. Indeed, this is crucial for the quality of future councillors.

 

As the course progressed it became clear that to get migrants really involved in politics and public life . you need much more than input from individuals. To make it all happen the key players have to be mobilised; the organisations that must give full co-operation are the political parties and public bodies.

 

Back with the meetings for migrant organisations, the first cycle is also complete. Issues covered included young people, education, the role of self-help organisations in the welfare scene, arts and culture, communication and personnel policy in the borough.

 

In general, participation and input from the grass roots of the self-help organisations was greater than expected.

 

The successful formula for the meetings was a short introduction on the main aspects followed by a question and answer session with a panel of experts . including politicians. This gave plenty of scope to raise specific issues and to air demands. 

 

In practice, we have all learned that getting migrants involved in politics is only stage one. It could be argued that stage two - getting them to stay . is equally important!  I say this because there is a clear tendency to drop out after the four-year period . or in mid-term. To counter this one, you have to confront the cultures within the parties and within the party groups on the council . and change them. This means giving councillors and party managers extra training in intercultural communication.

 

In any event, our results show that a systematic, targeted approach does work. The migrant candidates put forward by the political parties evidence this. 

 

The project to get people politically involved did work: because it was embedded in policy around migrants . a policy with deep and wide support.

At least as important was the belief among migrant organisations that they could have an impact on policy: confidence that they were valued and respected.

 

What does this mean in plain language? . Well, for a start that they can regard themselves as full partners with the political authorities. They can feel responsible for the involvement of their grass roots.

 

And the borough must enable them to play their role meaningfully.

 

Working together, we have made our plans. We have put our plans into operation; plus, we have a lot more in the pipeline. And to ensure ongoing improvement and change we evaluate our results every two years.

 

Our objectives are unchanged . to reach a real intercultural community in Oost/Watergraafsmeer where everyone can be involved to the full extend.