A key to achieving success as a public servant lies in mastering the art of engaging citizens effectively. This helps you understand their problems to offer effective solutions. For example, when implementing drought relief measures or even social programs, a methodical approach may overlook how the plan is perceived by the people and whether it is providing the intended relief. Engaging with citizens ensures better outcomes. In this blog, I share 5 effective tips to nail citizen engagement.
First, a personal story
It is evening, already dark. In the remote hilly areas of Paderu, India, inhabited by indigenous people, the dense green cover makes days seem shorter. Tulasi, a new mother, looked tired and exhausted holding her baby. I spotted her standing at the end of a long and winding line to withdraw a meagre ₹ 100 (approx. $ 2) from the ATM. Waiting for over two hours already and unsure of getting access, she is eager and restless to return home and feed her family. As the public servant entrusted with the welfare of the indigenous peoples, I was concerned. “I wish the Government intervenes to open more ATMs for us”, replied Tulasi, when I stopped by to interact with her on my way to work.
To understand the problem better, I interacted with people from more areas to find that this ordeal was pervasive in all the 11 administrative units under my jurisdiction. Proactive engagement with the citizens helped me initiate a series of measures in coordination with the bankers for opening 18 ATMs in the next three months. This ameliorated the waiting times for the people and taught me how invaluable citizen engagement is for good governance. These are five lessons I have from my 15 years in public service.
1. Make yourself citizen-centric
It might sound cliche. But often we take citizens for granted. If you put citizens first in every action that you take as a public servant, you would inevitably devise ways for engaging with citizens. Quite often, the problem lies in our attitude against placing citizens at the heart of the administration. Making ourselves open-minded about citizens’ participation is perhaps the fundamental step.
2. Leave the comfort of your desk to engage with citizens
Field visits are one of the most effective ways to connect with citizens. Direct interaction will give you valuable feedback for policy or program implementation. It also serves to think of possible solutions to overcome the problems. This interaction can be made very effective by making your field visits highly focused. For instance, consider a visit to a few health facilities to observe the implementation of free antenatal check-ups for pregnant women. Not only would your visits enable you to understand the actual implementation of the program but more importantly, they would provide you with an opportunity to interact with the beneficiaries. Consequently, this would help you analyze the roadblocks and discuss possible solutions with the intended beneficiaries.
“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world”
John le Carré
3. Turn citizen engagement into “the way” to work
A well-designed institutional mechanism always brings permanency and continuity to your initiatives in any aspect of governance. To devise such a mechanism for continued engagement with the citizens, you must take adequate care such that it inspires faith and trust in the citizens and that it is resilient.
If you are at a managerial level, one of the alternatives that stood the test of time is to devote one working day of your week with specific timings for meeting citizens in your office. This has three direct advantages. Firstly, the citizens know that you are available in the office. So, they can plan to meet you with their problems. Secondly, you can have your officers and ministerial staff available for immediate discussion of the problems and fixing timelines for resolution. Thirdly, you can personally interact with them. With these inherent advantages, you can proceed on that day to hear the grievances, reduce them to writing, assign them to specific officers with timelines for redressal, and ensure progress for the rest of the week. It is also important that the petitions are categorized as per the nature of the problem such as department-specific, urgency, budgetary implications, etc for specific action to be taken. It is of utmost importance that this mechanism is personally monitored by you to achieve stability and continuity.
4. Embrace transparency in your actions.
Transparency is not a choice; it’s an imperative in public service. As a public servant, your actions will naturally elicit citizen engagement if they are transparent. For instance, consider you are responsible for a road-building project. This task involves various stages that begin with the sanction of the project, allocation of the budget, entrustment of the work to an agency, commissioning, and various stages of construction leading to completion. At each stage, making the information about the project accessible to the citizens not only increases trust but also encourages their active participation. Citizens, equipped with meaningful information about the project, can engage with you on important aspects such as design, alignment, and quality of work, and even suggest alternatives on procurement. In this way, transparency doesn’t just foster citizen engagement but also paves the way for more efficient, effective, and accountable implementation of public projects. You can achieve this by publishing all the information such as technical specifications, images, and progress charts online. This approach allows citizens to conveniently access vital project details.
5. Harness the power of technology.
With the increasing penetration of the Internet across the world, you can employ technology to engage with citizens. A few cases in point are Madame Mayor I have an idea in Paris, Peta Jakarta in Indonesia, or MyGov in India. You can conduct simple online surveys in a local area to understand the performance of teachers, gather virtual feedback about the seed distribution program, create online platforms for community engagement on traffic-related problems, conduct a virtual citizen outreach program on sanitation, digitally publish the health facilities information, and use various smart apps that aid citizens in accessing public information. The limits are endless for the use of technology as a tool for citizen engagement.
Serve citizens better
To conclude, in the words of Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi, “Government leaders are amazing. So often it seems they are the last to know what the people want.” It is therefore incumbent upon us as public servants to ensure that we are not just ‘doing things right’ but also ‘doing the right things.’ And to do the right things, we must listen, engage, and co-create solutions with those we are here to serve – the citizens.
