The 9th Annual OIDP Conference, under the title “Youth, Citizens and Participatory Democracy” will be held on November 18, 19 and 20th in the Italian city of Reggio Emilia that is occupying the 2009 presidency of the OIDP network.

Faced with the important changes the entire world is going through, and the crisis in the system of representative democracy, it is necessary to consider new ways of managing the services and participation that implicate neighbourhoods, associations and each and every individual.

In the framework of participatory democracy, it is necessary to use other tools that create a feeling of active belonging to the territory and that allow us to enter into a new pact with the citizen. How can we do this? By investing in social policies and services: adapting and measuring the offer according to the specific needs of each person.

Citizens must have equal opportunities to access the advantages of the systems. Therefore there is a direct relationship between the services provided and the rights. The idea is that institutions must offer the same opportunities of access to the services and public resources in order to be able to generate social relationships in the framework of equality of dignity.

Both in the framework of social policies and in the founding of civil rights, youth today represent the most exposed political category. Each youngster is born “a stranger” to social cohesion that was founded before he or she appeared in society. Youth therefore are strangers to a type of social cohesion that belongs to the past, as it took place before the changes and demographic, social and economic mutations caused by globalization.

The objective of this conference is to place emphasis on youth participation in all the sessions (the same as adults), that they play their role as main players who bring wealth to life in the city, and overcome the idea of talking about them without having them in consideration.

It also intends to be as rich and heterogeneous as possible, combining interventions –coming from different places and conceived, having in account the criteria of parity of gender – of the political representatives, of theocrats and academics specialised in different fields, and the presentation of specific experiences, all the time keeping time for debate and dialogue in all the sessions to give the participants the opportunities to voice their opinions. On the other hand, the objective of the conference is also generate constructive thinking with specific participation based on a joint work session guided by specialists and that would be based on the different themes.

The sessions dedicated to the themes will allow us an indepth study of certain aspects of the general theme, approaching it from four different angles. They will start with the presentation of the theory by the coordinator. Later on practical cases or experiences will be incorporated and presented as useful elements that can have a positive outcome in other local contexts. This will be followed by an exchange and a debate with the participants of the corresponding workgroup.