Enhancing a culture of peace: the prominence of local community engagements and the role of Public Hearings on quality of life

Abstract

ABSTRACT The world faces a linked crisis of health, environment, quality of life, economics, and population. The prevailing concept of development – almost exclusively economic – inevitably produces massive exclusion, inside every society and among nations, on all continents. The depletion of the current development model is associated with instability and violence. This requires a new global vision putting in dialogue top-down and bottom-up perspectives, and a shift in the way policies and measures are shaped and in how political decisions and public policies are made. The support of democratization and basic freedoms by heartening broad contribution in political decision-making and local ownership is pondered as key to sustainable development (European Commission, n/d), the basis of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promoted by the United Nations.