Participatory methodologies for local environmental sustainability planning. The case of Agenda 21

Agenda 21 is a project aimed to promote the local environmental sustainability with the support and suggestions provided by citizen engagement. It had a time of splendor during the decade of the 2000s and became a space with a vast potential in order to develop practices that can lead to increase democratic involvement through participatory co-production of public policies, in this case, regarding local planning from a view point environmental and sustainable. IAP, as a participatory methodology, is an epistemological proposal that fits perfectly with Agenda 21 implementation, from an approach that goes beyond a purely advisory, formal or instrumental involvement. However, in many of the Agendas 21 developed in our country, this kind of methodological, transforming and engaging proposals have not been used, and therefore, citizen participation was a complementary element to the technical and political work without becoming the bedrock of the process, in the articulating basis that gives meaning to everything else. This article is addressed to highlight the relevance of the citizen participation in the local planning of environmental sustainability since this is the very hearth of the Agenda 21 target and the relevance of IAP as the proposed methodology to achieve it, in view of the necessity of promoting the public participation and engagement to foster the ecological sustainability of the lands. The key issue raised is the kind of the strategies that may be enforced in order to put such attempt into practice. In the Agendas 21 where we have applied the IAP, is taking place a social construction of knowledge aimed to promote to social changes through the work with associations, neighborhood groups, technicians and institutional representatives with various interests and sensibilities, prioritizing the mobilization of citizen participation in order to encourage social creativity. The methodological features of this Agenda 21 are the specific traits of the IAP adaptations made during the process in its three stages (diagnosis, planning and execution) which are evident in the implemented technical elements.