Finalists

For two days beginning on October 5, 2010, the working committee of the 2011 Reinhard Mohn Prize came together in Berlin to nominate the projects most worthy of receiving the prize. The committee members, who represent all areas of German society, had been furnished in advance with detailed background information and short profiles of the candidates.

After discussing the projects, the committee nominated seven finalists:

• British Columbia, Canada: Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform
• Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Co-Governance
• Geraldton, Australia: Geraldton 2029 and Beyond
• Hampton, USA: Deliberative Governance
• La Plata; Argentina: Multi-Channel Participatory Budgeting
• Portsmouth, USA: Portsmouth Listens
• Recife, Brazil: Participatory Budgeting

“I was very impressed with the variety of interesting projects from all over the world that had been submitted. When I saw the projects on the shortlist, it was immediately clear to me that nominating the finalists would be a challenging task,” said Stefan Gehrke, executive director of pol-di.net. e.V. / politik-digital.de and member of the working committee. “After two days of in-depth discussions, we were able to reach an agreement on which are the most worthy projects capable of serving as a model for activities in Germany.” Christoph Meineke, mayor of the town of Wennigsen, said, “The range and variety of the nominated projects show that there is a demand for new forms of civic participation around the globe. Established democracies like Germany must now take an in-depth look at the different models in place abroad. We hope the Reinhard Mohn Prize will play a key role in stimulating public discourse on this subject.”

In March 2011, some 11.600 German citizens were invited to choose the winner of the Reinhard Mohn Prize 2011. They were provided with detailed case studies, video portraits of each of the seven finalists and summaries of the finalists’ activities. The case studies are available under “Downloads.” The videos and summaries are available in the sidebar on the right.