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Citizen Engagement

E-Engagement in Asia Pacific

By nilotpal chakravarti | 8 April 2011

Government 2.0 has become one of the new buzz words especially with the Web 2.0 tools becoming increasingly popular in way ICT dominates lives of people. Governments today are becoming more connected and open. From an objective of delivering public services to citizens the goal today is more on improving efficiency and effectiveness with a focus on outcomes. With the greater use of Public Private Partnerships for government projects, increasingly there is more synergy between the Public and the Private goals. There is a transformation happening in the way government engages citizens also. From a scenario, where the prime focus was on delivering services to citizens and making information available to citizens, the shift now is engaging citizens proactively in the process of policy formulation.

Such a shift in government’s role is part of the global trends of governments using citizens’ knowledge, expertise and ideas to ensure that the right policies are formulated and all concerns are addressed. Web 2.0 tools are allowing governments to benefit from getting information promptly and taking the right action. However, the role of a citizen in today’s world can be more than a mere fault finder. There has to be a more positive and constructive way to engage the citizens rather than just conducting oversight. The citizens can be involved more in dialogue with the government that ensures participation of citizens in policy formulation.

A recent FutureGov Research on e-engagement initiatives in major economies wherein we interviewed 40 senior public sector officials finds that the main driving factor for engaging with citizens is to “empower and integrate citizens from diverse backgrounds”.

This provides a strong indication that governments are keen to develop an inclusive and empowered society where citizens are given ownership of their environment, especially in their interactions with the government.

It is thus important to integrate citizens from different backgrounds so that they can gain greater control over their lives and their community.

So what are the key principles the governments are following? Not surprisingly, they are transparency, openness and equality. There are two levels of transparency - one at the local community level and the other at the government level. We are all familiar with the demands from citizens for greater transparency and accountability of their elected officials and this extends across all levels from those who set policies to those on the ground who come face to face with constituents. While e-engagement offers opportunities to engage closely with the citizenry, it is not without challenges. Our respondents mentioned that generation gap was their main challenge, where the different capabilities of those from generation X and Y meant that careful consideration of the different types of e-engagement platforms was needed.

Ultimately, what is important to governments is to successfully design citizen engagement initiatives that meet the needs of their citizen constituents. Towards this end, the study finds that effective communication is the key.

If you wish to know more about the findings, please mail at nilotpal.chakravarti@alphabet-media.com

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