Aargau department receives award for mediation

Bern/Aarau , May 2023

The Aargau Department of Construction, Transport and Environment is awarded the Swiss Mediation Prize 2023. The award honours its consensus-oriented procedure for involving different interests in infrastructure projects. Aargau is the first canton to receive the prize.

For the first time, the Mediation Award of the Swiss Mediation Association (SDM) goes to a canton. The Aargau Department of Construction, Transport and the Environment(BVU) is being honoured for its consensus-oriented procedures in infrastructure projects. The procedure of the BVU shows “that living democracy with mediation and mediation-like participatory interests offers various forms that go far beyond majority decisions”, according to the SDM’s statement of reasons. Where controversies and different interests emerged, the possibilities of mediation were used. BVU, under its Secretary General Markus Büsser, plays a pioneering role in mediation in the public sector.

The BVU is delighted with the award. “In the BVU’s areas of responsibility, conflicting goals, differences and differing perspectives are part of daily business,” Büsser is quoted as saying in a statement from the canton. “The department management therefore regularly considers how it can promote a culture of communication and conflict that enables dialogue-oriented and sustainable cooperation.” The BVU refers, for example, to the round tables on the expansion of the Mellikon quarry, the floodplains in the Rietheimer Feld and the settlement of grid usage prices for electricity.

The Swiss Mediation Prize will be awarded for the third time in 2023. The Haus Tabea retirement centre in Horgen ZH also received an award. The prize will be presented at the SDM Congress, which will take place in Lausanne on 16 and 17 June.

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