Fostering Leadership for Collaborative Governance

Poster

We will discuss an approach developed by the Policy Consensus Initiative called "collaborative governance." This is a system where leaders convene all sectors to develop solutions to public problems that go beyond what any one sector could achieve on its own.

We know that when solutions are developed this way, they are more lasting, more effective, and have greater buy-in from everyone concerned. They won't get undone next year, or derailed because someone wasn't involved.

The Collaborative Governance approach can make this happen. It spells out what kinds of issues it works best with; who needs to be involved; what steps need to be followed; and what principles it is based on in order to work.

People have made ad hoc efforts and had isolated successes working collaboratively for years. But each time, they have to reinvent the wheel. We propose a system that can be routinely employed to address issues.

We will discuss how land grant universities are uniquely positioned to provide the capacity and the neutral forums essential to implementing collaborative governance. The role of Extension Educators will be discussed.