Beyond the Usual Voices: Making Engagement More Inclusive

Who isn’t participating in your engagement activities, and what might be standing in their way?

A 2025 guide from International IDEA and the International Parliament Engagement Network, Engaging Underrepresented Groups, encourages institutions to look beyond familiar voices and examine the barriers that prevent people from participating.

Although developed for parliaments, the guidance offers useful lessons for community and stakeholder engagement professionals across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.

Three practical lessons for engagement professionals

1. Rethink ‘hard to reach’. The guide suggests ‘seldom heard’ may be a more accurate description, shifting attention towards the processes and structures that can exclude people.
2. Remove barriers to participation. Consider whether engagement activities account for people’s time, transport costs, caring responsibilities, language and accessibility needs. Offering an opportunity to participate doesn’t necessarily make it accessible.
3. Share influence over the process. Meaningful inclusion goes beyond inviting feedback. Where appropriate, involving communities in designing, delivering and evaluating engagement can strengthen participation and ownership.

For Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand practitioners, these lessons provide a useful reminder to examine how engagement is designed, not just who attends. Engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Māori and mana whenua also requires recognising their distinct rights and relationships.

The key question: Are we making engagement accessible to more people, or simply hearing from those who already know how to participate?

EXPLORE THE GUIDE: ENGAGING UNDERREPRESENTED GROUPS