Pouyé

Raphael

Pouyé

Ad-Hoc Expert

Generic Skills

B.1. Understanding of integrated and sustainable urban development:

My political science master’s degree at Sciences Po Paris covered elements of sustainable development, through the lens of economic policy and development economics. As civil society trainer in Tunisia (2014-2015), I supported civil society skills in various policy dialogue topics, including sustainable development and local governance dialogue. In 2015-2016, with the Supporting Democracy Project of the European Commission (DG DEVCO), I participated in work on the EU Democratic Action Plans for Morocco and Tunisia, two countries in which we organized stakeholder mapping sessions in several localities of these two countries on priorities for inclusive urban development. Since then I have continued since 2020 as lead incubation expert for the Africa-focused Connexions Citoyennes project of supporting civic tech activists, often with a focus on sustainable urban affairs. As Country Manager of Democratic Society, I have since 2019 been coordinating work in France under the EIT Climate KIC – Healthy Clean Cities project. I co-designed and support inclusive climate transformation in the city of Orléans Métropole through the “Assises de la Transition Ecologique” and local governance arrangements for transition. I have since also been selected as curriculum designer/trainer on environmental transition in Seine Maritime under a pilot project of the French Ministry of Environmental Transition.

B.2. Understanding of exchange and learning processes at transnational level:

With Democratic Society, I have been developing a transnational learning network on transition governance innovations for cities, twinning French cities with ‘inspiring counterparts’ across the EU and beyond with the “Coordination nationale des conseils de développement” – which builds a compendium of best practices on participatory urban policies to meet net zero carbon objectives. I became a trainer in 2011 and have been involved in designing learning activities internationally every year since then. I started focusing on transnational learning activities with UNDP's Pro-PALOP TL, a project covering 5 African countries and Timor Leste. I designed and delivered a leadership training curriculum for electoral bodies in these countries. This training programme took place entirely through transnational exchanges. With ‘Supporting Democracy’, I was in DG DEVCO’s team orchestrating transnational learning activities on citizen engagement for EU Delegations and civil society. This included designing booklets on governance, electoral observation, co-organising the largest exchange ever of national domestic observer organisations and civic activists, designing EU4Democracy learning events for all EU Delegations (see: https://media4democracy.eu/supporting-democracy/) As Lead Expert for the French Development Agency’s “Connexions Citoyennes” in Francophone Africa, I designed a 3-year incubation/learning programme for two cohorts of 24 civic tech activists, in 14 countries.

B.3. Proficiency in English:

I moved to Washington DC at the age of 13 and spent one year there. At the age of 18, I spent nearly a year in New York City, working in restaurants and retail stores. Between 1999 and 2004, all of my activities took place almost exclusively in English, between my two UN positions in East Timor, short term postings in Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo, and my Fulbright exchange programme at Yale University. During my post-grad studies as a PhD candidate, I published extensively in English (see e.g. https://media4democracy.eu/wp-content/uploads/documents/Study_on_Approaches_to_Democratic_Participation/ICP-STUDY-Malaysia.pdf, and publications listed in my Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rapha%C3%ABl-pouy%C3%A9-1a33964/ ). In my various jobs with the EU and the UN, nearly all communication and reporting was in English (except in DR Congo, Togo and Benin). With the European Commission’s ‘Supporting Democracy’ project I supervised and co-authored various studies and booklets. I directly contributed to all of the publications accessible on the following webpage: https://media4democracy.eu/supporting-democracy/ Another recent publication in English that I largely contributed to is the Final Evaluation of NIMD's Strategic Parnerships Programme https://nimd.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Final-Report-SPDD.pdf

Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities:

Summary Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities:

Since 2011, I have been involved nearly full time on transnational exchange and learning activities. First with the UNDP Pro-PALOP project aimed at boosting exchanges and peer learning between electoral management staff and civil society groups of the 6 participating countries. Then, I established mechanisms of mutual support and lessons learned as Democracy & Innovation Expert with DG DEVCO (2015-2019). Our approach combined: surveys of the needs of dozens of EU Delegations on training/lessons to be learned on democracy/civil society support, turning this into an annual package of learning and outreach activities for EU Delegations and their civil society partner orgs known as EU4Democracy. At Democratic Society since 2019, We actively work to design tools that can ensure that deliberative processes are truly inclusive and can make a common voice. One of the ways to do so is through a design sprint with large number of participants, with several working groups, in which less confident less talkative participants will have a chance to contribute their comparatively rich experience/technical skills to the rest of the group. In order to ensure that even non-native speakers can follow I prepare simple MURAL templates with lots of visuals that would convey the meaning of the questions to be addressed, other more straightforward methods include photo exhibitions or participant videos for record keeping and repository building.

Thematic expertise:

Theme / Policy:

Local Governance

Summary Thematic expertise:

In 2015-2017, I participated in work on the EU Democratic Action Plans for Morocco and Tunisia and co-organized several in-person stakeholder mapping sessions in several localities of these two countries on priorities for inclusive urban development, particularly in the context of the re-drawing of provincial map in Morocco, and the new role of governorates in Tunisia. In addition, based on my work with Orléans Métropole since 2019 on the Assises de la transition écologique, I have participated in the design of the local climate democracy model – Democratic Society’s own analytical and normative model drawn from experience gathered in 14 EIT Climate KIC Healthy Clean Cities participants. This model is now fed into every mapping stage of the ‘indispensable elements for building a healthy and democratic local climate transition’. The model has received recognition from outside the project, such as in the OECD Observatory for Public Sector Innovation.

Theme / Policy:

Urban Strategic Planning

Summary Thematic expertise:

As Country Manager of Democratic Society, I have since 2019 been coordinating work in France under the EIT Climate KIC – Healthy Clean Cities project. I co-designed and supported inclusive climate transformation in the city of Orléans Métropole through the “Assises de la Transition Ecologique” and local governance arrangements for transition. In every city we work with, the initial mapping stage of our strategic mission experiments towards carbon neutrality are an excellent way of jointly shaping urban strategic planning with our partners. As part of the EIT Climate KIC programme in Orléans Métropole, I participated in drafting the substantial (60 pages) internal EIT report on participatory processes for urban transition in Orléans, which laid out every phase of ideation, consultations, planning, and implementation of the Assises de la Transition, a large participatory urban planning exercise for the first five years of Orléans transformation into a future carbon neutral city.

Expertise support to local authorities and other stakeholders in designing & delivering integrated and participatory policies

E.1. Knowledge on participatory methods and tools for co-production and implementation of local polices :

As Country Manager of Democratic Society, I have since 2019 been coordinating work in France under the EIT Climate KIC – Healthy Clean Cities project. I co-designed and supported inclusive climate transformation in the city of Orléans Métropole through the “Assises de la Transition Ecologique” and local governance arrangements for transition. As team leader for Democratic society, I ensured that me and my two colleagues would be involved in setting up a design sprint with large number of participants from Orléans Métropole, with whom we would design the ‘Assises de la transition écologique’. The working team consisted of several working groups, including city officials, technicians, experts, and elected representatives. The Assises themselves were the second stage of that effort, whilst also being a tool for the co-production of transformative actions through multiple workshops on nine themes, organized in accordance with principles of inclusivity and diversity of participants.

E.2. Knowledge on integrated approach for the design, delivering, monitoring and evaluation of urban strategies/policies:

With Democratic Society, I have since the Assises process been focusing on how to design sustainable, long-term citizen-led monitoring mechanisms to ensure that citizen voices are not heard only before and as a transformative agenda is established, but also when it is actually being implemented. We have coined this type of mechanisms: “local transition governance’. With a set of institutional and research partners, I have been further designing the building blocks for this model of transition governance, based on the earlier model of ‘climate democracy’ which we published in early 2021. https://www.demsoc.org/blog/climate-resilience-needs-community-roots

E.3. Awareness of the main policy and funding schemes for sustainable urban development at EU and national level:

Currently leading the work in France for the multi-partner project under the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Climate KIC (Healthy Clean Cities) - as well as my long-term career in EU-related international projects and policies - makes me well aware of the overall policy landscape and evolving funding schemes in the EU. I remain aware and informed of the development of key urban policies and debates about the most recent controversies by maintaining a well-curated cluster of key voices that I follow mainly on Linkedin. I also regularly explore publications online produced by the main international organisations involved in citizen participation in local development. Another important source of information for me are the articles published by urbanism agencies that deal with transformative urban policies when it comes to tackling inequalities, setting up the 15 minute city, new types of mobility, etc. In France, such agencies as Vraiment Vraiment and la 27ème region, as well as Plateau Urbain, are very useful sources of the most recent adaptations of current policy and funding.

E.4. Ability to understand specific local situations and adapt tools and content to different local realities:

The EIT Climate KIC Healthy Clean Cities programme spanning 15 cities in Europe is a very good example of how a method can and must be entirely adjusted to the local context, submitted to a full 360 degree review involving multiple stakeholders, so that each city produces its own portfolio of strategic experiments, i.e. the key dynamic actions carried out by a city to aim for carbon neutrality within 15 to 20 years. In the case of Orléans Métropole, I was one of the key persons responsible for analysing the political context and advocating for an adaptation of the methodology to the window of opportunity presented by the Assises de la Transition. This produced the very specific model of local transition governance that we are now presenting as a set of principles that may be re-used outside in European cities.

Summary Expertise:

As Country Manager of Democratic Society, I have since 2019 been working in France under the EIT Climate KIC – Healthy Clean Cities project. I co-designed and supported inclusive and participatory climate transformation in the city of Orléans Métropole through the “Assises de la Transition Ecologique” and helped design local governance arrangements for the post-Assises period. I have since the Assises process been focusing on how to design sustainable, long-term citizen-led monitoring mechanisms to ensure that citizen voices are not heard only before and as a transformative agenda is established, but also when it is actually being implemented. We have coined this type of mechanisms: “local transition governance’. I keep abreast of ongoing discussion on key urban policies on climate and participation especially in France, which has helped me better understand the context in which the EIT Climate KIC Healthy Clean Cities methodology should be adapted to the changing situation in the French cities and regions I approach for an iteration of the transition governance pilot experiment.