Summary
The involvement of citizens in the political process is an essential part of democracy. Tactics and strategies for increased citizen participation in local governance can be seen around the globe. In the municipality of Nejapa, El Salvador, the municipal government partnered with local NGOs. It sought to increase public involvement in local politics. This resulted in huge increases in access to potable water, latrines, and electricity for its residents.
In India, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) has been deeply involved in a collective process which has shaped the Campaign for the Right to Information in India. MKSS makes the case that without access to information and transparency there can be no genuine participation of all members of society, particularly the poor, in democracy. This dialogue served as an opportunity for those involved in strengthening citizen participation in local governments, as well as those interested in it, to discuss these questions and share their experiences and ideas.
What does it mean to strengthen citizen participation in local governance and why is it important?
Citizen participation in local governance involves ordinary citizens assessing their own needs and participating in local project planning and budget monitoring. It is important for improving public resource management and reducing corruption. This can be done by making public servants and political leaders accountable to the people. For citizen participation to work, transparency of government information is needed. You also need the inclusion of members into decision-making from groups whose concerns are being addressed. Excluding the weak and powerless from decision-making is a cause of poverty. It denies them rights and creates unequal power relationships. Brazil has addressed this by introducing a number of mechanisms to enhance citizen participation. This includes its Participatory Budget and public policy councils.
Civil and political rights, including freedom of expression and access to information, which are at the basis of political participation, are human rights in themselves. Citizen participation requires trust, belief and wholeness: trust in their co-participants, belief that participation can make a difference, and feeling socially included. To ensure strong participation of citizens in local governance, citizens need to understand and want to exercise their right to participate in local political issues. They need to feel confident and know where and how to participate. Local institutions should be prepared to facilitate the citizen participation.
Engaging citizens in local governance improves accountability and the ability of local authorities to solve problems. It creates more inclusive and cohesive communities, and increases the number and quality of initiatives made by communities. One way to increase awareness and to empower citizens to have a voice is through increased access to technology, in particular, social media. The potential of public media working in conflict regions is especially interesting for opening spaces for dialogue and improving transparency and the hidden social structures that generate corruption.
Empowering Educators to Promote Human Rights and Social Transformation
A project in Pakistan is building the capacity of teacher training institutions to teach good governance, human rights, gender and youth development and empowerment, and the positive role of media in promoting these concepts. This project operates with the hope of producing a teachers capable of instilling these values in high school students in conflict areas.
In the Philippines, where the tradition of human rights activism is grounded on a moral basis of being human, asserting human rights tends to be associated with opposition politics. While activists accept the risks and costs of promoting human rights, those for whom they struggle can be made more vulnerable if human rights issues are not translated into citizens’ rights.
In Portugal the last few decades have brought major social changes, improvinag the standard of living of some but leaving many ‘stateless citizens’. In countries such as Portugal and the Philippines we see the need for human rights to be operationalized, and for a focus on education to solve social challenges.
Around the world, community based organizations do much to bring about real social transformation and empowerment of people:
- the Civil Rights Movements of USA
- the Dalits and Tribal Rights movement in India
- the freedom movement in India or South Africa
- the Labor Rights Movement in Russia
- Women’s rights movements across the globe
All of these serve as examples that people do not need to be socio-economically well off or even highly educated. What is most important is the ownership of people with full commitment to the mission of the movement.
How have you strengthened citizen participation in local governance?
One participant identified three adjustments in tactics that promote more effective and sustained citizen participation in local governance:
- understanding and using formal institutions of power
- electing and appointing local officials, and
- bringing together citizens’ groups and government officials to jointly formulate program plans.
A project in Uganda is working to create an interactive platform to provide stakeholders with key information, bring together the various actors involved in local governance, empower citizens to demand accountability from elected leaders, and ensure equitable distribution and provision of goods and services. Other projects experimenting with online and mobile technologies to increase citizen’s participation at the local level include the World Bank’s participatory budget monitoring at the local level in Eastern DR Congo. In Cambodia, an Oxfam’s partner uses voter scorecards. Volunteers with mobile phones in remote localities to monitor if elected representatives keep their election promises.
Education and training are crucial in empowering citizens to effectively participate in local governance. This is especially true in communities that have experienced significant political change. They must quickly learn how to find and vet timely political intelligence. In the Palestinian territory, youth centers, run by youth parliaments, teach adolescents about the democratic process and provide them with positive life experiences. In Brazil, INESC works in poorly performing, under-resourced schools, to strengthen the capacity of youths to secure their rights through the monitoring of public budgets and policies that affect them. The Youth Participatory Budgets in Portugal bring to the political arena citizens not yet able to vote in regular elections due to age. They show that with the right means and good communication the youth, often accused of having little or no interest for the collective good, participate in fruitful and creative ways.
Empowering Communities Through Participatory Budgets and Local Governance
Fahamu in Kenya introduced participatory budgeting to help communities engage directly with county governments. Previously, they relied on NGOs for interaction. Fahamu also runs a mentorship program to strengthen social movements. They use the State of the Union campaign to raise awareness about important issues. The campaign informs the African Union, member states, and the public about key decisions. Fahamu stresses that policies must change at both state and inter-state levels for local impact.
In Brazil, an NGO trained police officers to become human rights defenders. The training highlights the advantages of interactive security. In the Philippines, Education for Life supplements government training for local officials by focusing on marginalized villages. They teach communities about planning, development, and peace-building. Due to limited funding, they developed leader-graduates as community-based educators instead of hiring full-time staff.
In Latin America, political parties promote citizen participation in local governance. Accessible participatory budgets, decentralization, and openness support citizen involvement in decision-making.
A participant shared experiences from community organizers in the Philippines. Since the 1970s, many have taken a “conflict-confrontation” approach to building people power. Now, local governments have shifted from “politics of resistance” to “politics of participation.” This shift has increased citizen engagement. In newer democracies, however, change can be difficult. Citizens risk being seen as opposition for questioning state actions. Investing in community leaders is crucial for sustaining mobilization and empowerment.
How do you measure the impact of stronger citizen participation?
Using a theory of change can be a useful tool in measuring impact. According to one participant, the first step is to build a theory of change around citizen participation. The theory of change needs to be periodically revisited. Next, indicators measuring short and long term change must be identified. Because the path of progress that citizen participation will take cannot be predicted, practitioners need to remain alert to changes, positive or negative. In some cases, it may take many years for the desired impact to be noticed. For others, progress can be noticed in a much shorter time. However, every project should have clear phases after which an evaluation can be conducted and project leaders can see if any progress has been achieved.
In Pakistan, for example, media is playing a crucial role in creating political awareness among the citizens. It has assumed the role of watchdog of democracy by providing unbiased information to viewers. It does this through talk shows, current and international affairs programs and comedy shows on political themes. The media, particularly citizen journalism, can also be used to measure the impact of citizen participation.
Another method of measuring change around citizen participation is outcome mapping. Outcome mapping facilitates in measuring indicators that are meaningful, helps to understand power at local levels. It can be a great tool for integrating monitoring fully into management decisions in what needs to be an adaptive, opportunistic program to be successful.
The Impact and Challenges of Participatory Budgeting in Local Governance
Studies of participatory budgeting (PB) have documented important effects on the quality of local democracy, on government spending patterns, on living conditions, and on individual participants. While these effects have not been seen in all places using PB, there is growing evidence that when practiced well, over time PB has significant, positive, and measurable impacts. In Portugal, municipalities that have been nurturing PB invite citizens to participate in the process online. In so doing, they target a different group of people than those who usually participate in in-person meetings or regular assemblies.
Adopting PB is a political decision that has to be decided by the board of a municipality and particularly by its mayor. Some committed politicians think of it as an instrument to improve local governance. Others implement it with no political will. Because of the strong top-down management approach, many processes collapse if conducted by skeptics. In Latin America, PB does not seem to be as consistent. Many local governments not renewing PB or simply not implementing it. One participant concludes that “where PB is best able to contribute to sustainable development (Brazil), it is not especially widespread across municipalities and tends not to persist, and that where PB seems to be less effective thus far (Peru, the Dominican Republic), it is often more widespread and sustainable because it is mandated by law”.
What challenges have you faced? How did you overcome them?
When developing a local agenda, it is important to consider citizenship rights, democratization, plurality and rights of minorities. Stimulating interaction between the public and civic actors at the local level allows information to reach local stakeholders. It provides them with a holistic view of the actors and relations involved and helping local actors make better-informed decisions on strategic routes to take for participation in their local settings. Undertaking nuanced analysis is key – participation in local governance can only be effective if it is context-appropriate.
One weakness of analysis is focusing on how things are ‘meant’ to happen and less on how things ‘really’ happen. This highlights the need for a deliberately deep and wide analysis of power relations in local (or even national) context. Furthermore, not knowing the external players is another problem. This leads to many programs choosing to focus on short term gains or minor matters and not really making a long term difference.
Relating experience at local spaces in iterations with the government is difficult. Especially in contexts where citizens do not exercise their rights. One participant concludes that to empower civil society organizations, decision makers should be influenced to create a suitable environment for the active participation of citizens. Citizens should trained in the skills, competencies, mechanisms and methodologies to participate.
Resources and tools for strengthening citizen participation
Evolution of Chukua Hatua (Take Action) – Oxfam-run program in Tanzania that takes an evolutionary approach to programming built on a core process of variation-selection-amplification to find out what works as a catalyst to active citizenship. NOTE: password required to view video is tanzania
- Governance and Social Development Resource Center: provides cutting-edge knowledge services on demand and online. It aims to help reduce poverty by informing policy and practice in relation to governance, conflict and social development.
- Communication and Governance, topic guide
- Decentralization and Local Governance, topic guide
- Impact of Communication for Development (C4D), Helpdesk Research Report – 29th March 2011
- International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, United Nations, New York, 16 December 1966
- New Weave Of Power, People and Politics, A, Lisa VeneKlasen and Valerie Miller, Just Associates (2007)
- Participatory Budgeting and Local Governance: An Evidence-Based Evaluation of Participatory Budgeting Experiences in Brazil, Yves Zamboni, World Bank Working paper (2007)
- Power and Making Change Happen, Raji Hunjan & Soumountha Keophilavong, Democracy and Civil Society Program. Published by the Carnegie UK Trust, November 2010
- Powercube.net, resource for understanding power relations in efforts to bring about social change. Contains practical and conceptual materials to help in thinking about how to respond to power relations within organizations and in wider social and political spaces.
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations
- United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development
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