The government can pay for citizen participation

by Dondon Parafina

Note: This is part 2 of the blog titled, “The government should pay for citizen participation”.

All throughout the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Global Summit 2015, which was held in Mexico last October 27-29, I tried to steer discussions around the idea of government financing of citizen participation. I purposely used this opportunity to sound off this idea.

The feedback was promising. In one session, an African noted that it is ideal but would not happen in their country in the immediate future. Perhaps in 50 years, he added. A Sri Lankan remarked that he never thought of that track of support for civil society work on accountability, but it made a lot of sense. The American moderator praised the idea and agreed that institutionalization of citizen participation logically entails financing by the government itself. The Indian moderator in another session opined that it’s a viable arrangement that will require a policy and systems study.

Let me level up the discussion and bravely claim that there are indications that the government can actually pay for citizen participation in public governance. I do not mean only that it should pay in principle; I believe there are also practical reasons  that it can do so.

The government should pay for citizen participation

by Dondon Parafina

Citizen participation and citizen engagement in governance are buzzwords in the civil society and non-profit sector.

Citizen participation takes place when citizens attend government consultations, observe processes, monitor projects, respond to surveys, gather and analyze data and report findings, etc. A government agency can claim to be inclusive, attentive and responsive to citizens’ needs when it features one or two or a combination of these tools in their processes, whether it’s planning, budgeting, spending or auditing. These tools for participation help improve the quality of government services because the authorities can hear direct feedback from the citizens, know what the service users or citizen customers want, and fix reported problems. Any government manager genuinely concerned with the agency's  performance should be interested in citizen participation, in the same manner that private businesses make sure they understand and get feedback from their customers to be competitive in the market.

On the citizens’ side, participation also translates into empowerment to exact accountability from government. Such approach to participation is what we have come to know as social accountability.