Danish Water Utilities’ citizen panel on the future of drinking water

Many associations and voluntary organizations are struggling to stay relevant to their members, to ensure engagement and support in the future, and to get volunteers to engage and take ownership.

Danish Waterworks is a member organization for consumer-owned waterworks and works for good conditions for supplying clean drinking water now and in the future. The organization educates and advises member waterworks and represents their interests politically and professionally

In the member boards of Danish Waterworks, the average age of board members is 65 years and 5 out of 6 members are men. If the security of supply and the quality of our drinking water is to continue to be lifted locally by consumers, there is a need for more and more people to participate in the task of securing the drinking water of the future. Danske Vandværker joined forces with Region Zealand to work for this need.

We Do Democracy designed and facilitated a deliberative citizen panel across Region Zealand, tasked with making recommendations to develop the water supply of the future, with security of supply, the highest quality drinking water and strong local support.

The citizen panel’s work focused on involving citizens, local associations and businesses in the development of the future water supply and strengthening local communities.

Citizens met two weekday evenings online and a whole weekend in person to write their recommendations to Danske Vandværker.

Two expert advisors and a youth panel were assigned to the citizens’ work. The expert advisors contributed with knowledge presentations at the sessions and the youth panel participated in one of the sessions in the citizen panel and to give the youth perspective extra attention, from the perspective that it is the young people’s future that must be decided.

The citizen panel has written a vision for the future of water and given their priorities for the 5 core values that should apply in the work to secure our drinking water.

In addition, within 5 themes, they have made 14 recommendations on how Danske Vandværker can work to get as many people as possible actively involved in their local waterworks.

It has been important for citizens to maintain local ownership and give more people the opportunity to participate through more visibility in the local community and a renewal of the way water utilities organize their board work.

Danske Vandværkers Landsbestyrelse is obligated to respond after 3 months and 12 months on how recommendations are used in connection with their upcoming strategy for the many Danish waterworks throughout the country

You can read more about the Citizen Panel and their recommendations here: danskevv.dk/om-os/udviklingsprojekter/borgerpanel/