From participatory budgeting to community-led services: The co-production journey of Çanakkale in Turkey

Introduction

Outside Turkey Çanakkale is widely known for the nearby historic site Troy, which is visited by thousands of tourists every year. In Turkey Çanakkale has also developed a strong reputation for citizen participation in public decisions and community co-production of public services. The driving force has been the directly elected Mayor Mr Ülgür Gökhan of the CHP, which is a Social-Democratic Party. In the early 2000s he used the Agenda 21 process in Turkey as a window of opportunity to introduce citizen involvement in Çanakkale. Ferhat Emil and Elke Loeffler both had the opportunity to work with Evrim Akman in Çanakkale, who was key to the participation process from the very beginning within a UNDP project in 2006. Eight years after this project, citizen involvement in Çanakkale has matured and taken some new directions. 

This case study outlines the milestones, successes and barriers in the co-production journey and the lessons learnt by Çanakkale Municipality and citizen groups.