Ethics in Policy Deliberation Toolkit
A Framework for Ethical Deliberation in Municipal Planning and Management
This toolkit was designed by Professor Keith Hyams and Dr. Morten Byskov at the University of Warwick, together with Dr. Gina Ziervogel and Dr. Jessica Lee at the University of Cape Town. It was developed and tested in collaboration with the Risk and Resilience team in the City of Cape Town local government. The toolkit provides a structured method for thinking through how issues of ethics and fairness bear on decisions made by local governments.
It explores:
- What ethics is
- How to identify ethical issues in decision-making
- Different ethical principles and principles of fairness
- How to decide on and apply ethical principles to a policy or programming decision
Municipal planning commonly involves issues that are of ethical interest, including poverty alleviation, distribution of resources, safeguarding against environmental risks, and promotion of childhood development and education. These issues often concern what public programmes to promote and prioritize; what communities to assist; and whose interests and needs to be addressed.
Ethical deliberation can help generate robust solutions that anticipate and avoid potential negative consequences.
The toolkit provides a suite of materials, including videos, briefings and PowerPoint presentations, that can be used by teams working within municipal contexts to think through how issues of ethics and fairness are relevant to their work and decisions.
The toolkit is based on 6 key stages of ethical deliberation. These stages can be used as and when needed by individuals or teams, or they can be used as part of a training package to integrate ethical deliberation into across all relevant decision-making contexts.
We are also able to arrange discussion or training sessions with our team at Warwick to facilitate use of the toolkit.