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Part of Collaboration within and among municipalities

Collaborative Governance Initiative

Supports available to improve communication and conflict management between and within municipalities.

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Collaboration within and among municipalities

Overview

The Collaborative Governance Initiative (CGI) is a proactive opportunity for municipal elected and administrative leaders to look internally at their organizations or intermunicipally with their neighbours to find creative, locally relevant ways to improve their work together.

Municipalities will use a framework to evaluate how they manage internal and/or external issues. Once an assessment is complete, organizations are encouraged to develop new ways to manage issues through enhanced policies, procedures, evaluation processes and training.

Internally within a municipality, the initiative can involve designing new systems within organizations to reduce tension within workplace relationships, while improving communication between council and staff.

External collaboration can include developing proactive, preventative approaches for engaging and resolving disputes with residents, ratepayers, developers and other stakeholders.

  • Why use CGI

    The program can help a municipality dealing with:

    • an increasingly complicated public policy environment with various stakeholders who all want a voice
    • a greater diversity in population
    • addressing a range of priorities with limited resources
    • finding ways to build more collaborative working relationships both within and outside the organization

    The CGI is best suited to:

    • public policy disputes
    • municipal administration disputes
    • organizational and administrative conflicts
    • contractual / employment disputes
    • intermunicipal cooperation protocols and intermunicipal collaboration framework discussions
    • disputes between a municipality and its residents

    The CGI has 2 phases:

    1. Assessment phase: collaborative principles, processes and protocols are created by consensus.
    2. Implementation phase: municipal organizations implement the principles, processes and protocols which arose from the assessment phase.

  • CGI Supports Available

    We can help municipalities assess whether collaborative governance is an appropriate fit and help get the process started.

    Advisory help:

    • Evaluating methods to enhance communication and relationships. 
    • Providing information sessions, training and situation-specific assessments. 
    • Offering guidance on alternative dispute resolution strategies. 
    • Assisting municipalities with selection of professional expertise to resolve disputes by providing a roster of mediators and arbitrators.

    Financial help:

    • Municipalities can access funding through the Mediation and Cooperative Processes (MCP) component of the Alberta Community Partnership program, including assistance with completing the grant application and advising on effective project design.
    • The MCP component includes 2 streams:
    1. The Collaborative Processes stream provides grant funding to assist municipalities to develop collaborative protocols and processes.
    2. The Mediation stream provides grant funding to assist with hiring a facilitator, mediator and/or arbitrator to proactively manage conflict, assist in the negotiation of service agreements, land-use disputes, annexations, Intermunicipal Collaboration Frameworks (ICF), Intermunicipal Development Plan (IDP), or Joint-Use Planning Agreements (JUPA).

  • Success Stories: Protocols and Agreements

    Municipalities across Alberta have developed collaboration protocols and agreements to guide their activities in ways that limit conflict escalation.

Contact

Connect with a member of the Municipal Collaboration team:

Email: [email protected]
Phone: 780-427-2225
Toll free: 310-0000 before the phone number (in Alberta)

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