On 23 March, experts and civil society came together in Groningen, the Netherlands, to discuss how local voices are often overlooked in natural resource extraction, and how true democracy can help to amplify and include the perspectives of those most affected, both in the Netherlands and around the world.

In Groningen, residents and local and provincial elected representatives ran into a national wall of unwillingness and deafness when gas production was found to lead to earthquakes. The report ‘Groningers over gas’ by the parliamentary inquiry committee confirms what residents, action groups and local administrators have been saying for years. And now, in the move from fossil to renewable energy, little is changing that governance culture, because when plans for wind turbines in the Veenkoloniën came up, the say of residents and municipal administrators was stifled and ignored in sham participation. We talked extensively about this with Liesbeth van de Wetering (Provincie Groningen) and Lies Zondag (provincial councillor Groningen). What are the solutions to bring in more local voices to policies that are drafted on a national or even European level?

Democracy is also under pressure in other contexts because of the great distance between regions and policymakers in capitals. In Mozambique, for instance, the popular commitment is that natural gas revenues should also lead to improvements locally. A project by NIMD (Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy) and partner organisation IMD Mozambique brought together the national parliament and the people and politicians in the provinces for a dialogue. We spoke with Gil Mulhovo of IMD Mozambique about this. 

In South Africa, the organisations MACUA (Mining Affected Communities) and WAMUA (Women Affected by Mining in Action), together with the international women’s organisation ActionAid, are focusing on having a say and codecision on mining policies in their areas. “Nothing about us without us”. Fatima Vally of the organisation spoke extensively on the consequences of mining by big companies in various contexts in South Africa. Marit Maij also joined – her organisation ActionAid supports people across the world who want to be involved in local decision-making under the credo ‘Nothing about us without us”. 

Democracy Under Threat is a coalition of organizations that wants to prevent further backsliding of democracy, and to improve democracy both at home as well as abroad. The Coalition has formulated a manifesto on behalf of Dutch civil society, including recommendations for the Dutch government on how to improve democratic institutions and practices in the Netherlands and strengthen democracy abroad. The manifesto calls upon the government to include these recommendations in its contribution to the second ‘Summit on Democracy’.