Closing Citizen Feedback Loops: From ‘Your Problems’ to ‘Our Solutions

Speakers
Fredrik Galtung, Co-founder and President, Integrity Action
David Bonbright, Co-founder and Chief Executive, Keystone Accountability
Zurab Sanikidze, Acting Head of Analytical Department of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia.

Description
The Open Government Partnership provides a platform for governments to demonstrate a commitment to greater citizenengagement. Citizen feedback is an important means by which government engages with citizens. In this webinar, experts will outline key principles of designing robust citizen feedbackmechanisms and share models using examples from OGP commitments.

Fredrik Galtung at Integrity Action makes a useful distinction between three main types of citizen engagement: Type A is principal driven, say by a prime minister or governor’s office; Type B is manager driven; and Type C is user-generated and owned, like TripAdvisor or Yelp. He suggests that the most robust and resilient systems of feedback use all three. While governments and international organizations tend to think in terms of Types A and B, civil society could do much more to capitalize on the potential of Type C – and governments should actively solicit them as well.

David Bonbright at Keystone Accountability notes that the effectiveness of OGP commitments on citizen feedback will be determined largely by the quality of the design of the feedbackmechanisms. Using an example of a citizen engagement pilot project in South Africa driven by the President’s Office, David Bonbright will illustrate the critical design features of effectivefeedback mechanisms, and how the challenges of cost, data quality and organizational capacity are being addressed in this case.

The presenters will also share two versions of a compellingly straightforward way to assess the performance of citizen feedbackefforts — i.e. by asking citizens.

Lastly, to illustrate an OGP commitment on citizen feedback, the Government of Georgia’s OGP Action Plan Commitment #2: “Voice of the Consumer” will be explored by providing some insight on the context under which the commitment was developed, what has been done so far to achieve the commitment, and what the potential impact will be once it is accomplished.

ACCESS RECORDED WEBINAR HERE: http://worldbankva.adobeconnect.com/p5tw0rz24yb/