From Stakeholders to Shared Decisions A Participatory City-Making Game Workshop

Cities are shaped by negotiations and power relations as much as by plans and budgets, especially in the context of climate action. This interactive workshop introduces Involvement, a facilitated simulation game developed by the Institute POLIS that models participatory decision-making for climate-responsive urban development. Participants assume hidden roles of key urban stakeholders — residents, businesses, and civic activists — and, under limited budgets and conflicting priorities, propose climate-related projects, form coalitions, negotiate trade-offs, vote, and face public authority as an arbiter. Each round reflects core climate governance challenges: resource scarcity, unequal impacts, and competing adaptation and mitigation goals. The workshop transforms climate participation from an abstract concept into lived experience through hands- on negotiation and collective decision-making, aligned with WUF13 and UN priorities on climate resilience, inclusive governance, and SDGs 11 and 13