User:Signatiu

This is the user page of Sonja-Maria Ignatius.

DARM course (2015)

Assignment 1.

What is shared understanding?

Shared understanding is an ambitious goal of open policy practice. When shared understanding is attained, all parties or individuals concerned with the topic can understand each others views about it. Shared understanding does not mean that everyone agrees on the topic but rather than everyone understands what others think about the topic and why. In shared understanding the principle is not to find the one best option but to identify one or more poor decision options that can be rejected. This principle I find very interesting and I would like to learn more about it. Shared understanding can be achieved with skillful execution of open policy practice.

In my previous job at Finnish Environment Centre me and my colleagues studied the different uses of Paimionjoki watershed. Important part of the study was to get different interest groups together to create a basis for decision-making on improving the state of the lakes and rivers. There were many different groups with partly different interests: recreational fishermen, summer cottage owners, tourists, farmers, authorities, hydropower company... By getting people together the researchers and hopefully also the attendees of the study gained a better understanding, yet of course not a complete shared understanding. Working together helped to clarify some misunderstandings: people were afraid that the water level would sink if some measures were done by the hydropower company, although this was not the case. Also it became evident that people from different groups had many common goals. For instance many farmers also had summer cottages and were avid fishermen.

Shared understanding can help to make decisions because people understand each other better and this way can become more willing to make compromises as well. On the other hand, if there are people who can´t stand each other, decision making will not become easier but maybe even harder.

I realized that it was difficult for the people to understand that the researchers are not going to do the actual measures of rehabilitation. This should have been communicated more clearly to avoid possible disappointment.

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