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National community-building conference seeks civil consensus

  • Date:2019-11-15
National community-building conference seeks civil consensus

As the community-building movement in Taiwan is set to enter its third decade, the Ministry of Culture's "2019 Next" National Community Building Conference will be held on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 to forge civil consensus and produce a white paper.


Since August, the National Community Building Conference has held 12 regional forums in northern, central, southern, and eastern Taiwan and the outlying islands. These have been accompanied by 16 forums on community activism and empowerment in various cities and counties around the nation, all in preparation for the final conference in Taipei.


The three core values of this two-day conference are public participation, social transformation, and democratic governance, and discussions will be held on four topics — public governance, generational progress, pluralism, and social co-innovation.


On the first day, preparatory meetings will be hosted by conveners and deputy conveners on each topic, with advisory committee members, scholars, experts, and representatives of community groups, local governments, and government ministries invited to participate. The content of these meetings will then be summarized and the opinions bought forward at each meeting compiled for further discussion on day two.





To spur public participation, the official website for the conference also includes a "civic participation" section for collecting and sharing stories of Taiwanese community-building cases. To solicit ideas and opinions from all walks of life, the website also has a special section for the public to submit proposals and suggestions, and those that meet the 300-signature threshold will be included in the preliminary draft of the Ministry of Culture's community-building white paper.





The conference hopes that this bottom-up approach to participation and information-gathering will encourage more community-building partners to get involved with the National Community Building Conference. The Ministry of Culture looks forward to working with everyone on shaping the future goals and direction of these efforts, building a consensus among Taiwanese society, and discussing concrete actions and feasible strategies that can be incorporated into the white paper that will outline the blueprints for building the Taiwan of tomorrow.





The "2019 Next" National Community Building Conference will be held on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 at the Howard Civil Service International House in Taipei, and all members of the public are invited to take part in shaping the future of community-building in Taiwan. Register for free here.