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Citizen Infrastructure

The Citizens' Assembly for Norway's Future (2025)

TL;DR. In 2025, seven Norwegian civil-society organisations did something unusual: rather than wait for the government, they themselves commissioned a national citizens’ assembly — the Citizens’ Assembly for Norway’s Future (Framtidspanelet) — on a question the politicians would rather not open: how should Norway use the enormous wealth of its oil fund, for the world, for itself, and for future generations?

At a glance

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WhenJanuary–May 2025
WhereNorway (national)
Who66 members, selected by sortition on sex, age, region, education, and 2021 vote
FormatTwo in-person weekends + six online evening sessions; organised by So Central with We Do Democracy
Commissioned bySeven civil-society organisations — Save the Children Norway, Norwegian Church Aid, the Norwegian Children and Youth Council, Caritas Norway, WWF, the long-term think tank Langsikt, and Future in Our Hands
Remit”Norway is one of the world’s richest countries. How can we use our wealth for the good of the world, ourselves, and future generations?” — with sub-questions on values, global priorities, and the Government Pension Fund (the “oil fund”)

What happened

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So Central, a Norwegian social-innovation non-profit, had wanted to bring citizens’ assemblies to the national level. When Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent extra oil-and-gas profits Norway’s way, a debate stirred about whether that windfall was even “ours” — and the idea crystallised: hold that conversation across the whole country, not just in one room. Because the ~$1.8 trillion oil fund “works so well,” it’s a topic politicians avoid — which is exactly the space a civil-society-commissioned, “claimed” assembly can open. When 40,000 invitation texts went out, more than 2,000 people replied by the next morning, far above the expected response.

Impact

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The members presented their recommendations in parliament, timed ahead of the parliamentary election. Their emphasis on the values that should guide the fund proved prescient: a national row erupted over the fund’s investments linked to the war in Gaza, putting exactly the question the assembly had deliberated onto the front pages. As a civil-society process, its goal was to start a national conversation rather than bind a government — and the commissioners (WWF among them) stressed they had committed only to engage with the recommendations, not adopt them. Impact on this kind of process is diffuse and slow; the clearest sign was that members carried the conversation back into their own communities, and a grassroots campaign for a permanent citizens’ assembly alongside the oil fund has since emerged.

How it went

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The organisers’ honest lessons: a huge remit plus limited time (two weekends) left little room to adapt when the world shifted mid-process; and the hardest impact lever was cultivating well-known “multipliers” on the stakeholder board to carry the message — they should have invested in those relationships earlier and harder. One member, who joined to defend local infrastructure, left arguing Norway must think about global health and the generations after the next — the mind-changing that recurs whenever people actually deliberate. See institutionalising deliberation for why turning this into something permanent is the next challenge.

Sources

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