What We Do

Citizen Engagement Tools and Processes

The solutions to all challenges can be found within societies. Forging constructive relationships between citizens and their representatives and open, accessible processes are essential to ensure unlocking this incredible potential.

Citizen engagement is most effective when everyone affected by an issue can share their experiences and ideas and have a say in decision making. Public participation can influence decisions that affect the delivery of services, reduce societal tensions and address economic challenges. Engaging citizens empowers legislators to undertake their legislative, oversight and budget functions more effectively. Ultimately, this leads to improved results in key policy areas, including health, education and economic opportunities.

The Parliamentary Centre supports parliaments to address the growing erosion of public trust by enhancing citizen participation and engagement through improved parliamentary processes. Originally, developed by CARE Malawi in 2002, the Community Score Card (CSC) methodology is one of our main tools to help build bridges between our partner parliaments and the citizens they represent. This tool has helped involve close to 6000 citizens in more than ten different countries in local decision-making. The Centre has also developed public consultation guidelines to open parliaments’ doors to citizen participation and oversight with the support of civil society organizations.

Partners

Parliamentarians

Parliamentary Staff

Government Officials

Related Programs

EngageParl

EngageParl

Our EngageParl online engagement platform is a tool to drive measurable civic engagement to empower collaborative learning, discussion, and debate. Thanks to 24/7 moderation, our platform provides capacity for engagement in a safe, information-rich environment through an integrated range of online feedback tools.

Our Voice, Indonesia

Our Voice, Indonesia

Participation of ordinary citizens in decision-making processes is low in Indonesia, and women’s voices that remain largely absent from public forums, especially at the local level. The “Our Voice” project, which used innovative SMS-polling technology to empower women to participate in local decision-making, broke down traditional barriers for women’s participation in decision-making, and brought tangible changes in the work of village authorities.