Citizen Report Card System - CiReCa - Brief Description

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Provision of effective and quality public services is of enormous interest for the citizens’. In many cases when public services fail and politicians don’t seem to care the citizens’ feel abandoned. Providers of public services including power, telephone, water, sanitation, and road services are often not held accountable for their lack of action and little pressure is exerted upon them to provide improved services. On the principle that clients know best whether services are working or failing, citizen report cards quantify information from stratified surveys of citizen experiences of public service delivery. Citizen report cards are a useful approach for setting into motion a public dialogue with service providers. By activating the media in order to highlight the findings the citizens are gradually given the confidence to demand improvements in the provision of public services. Citizen report cards identifies the key constraints that citizens face in accessing public services, their appraisals of the quality and adequacy of public services, and the treatment they receive in their interactions with service providers, especially government officials. It offers several recommendations on sector and sub-sector policies, strategies and programmes to address the constraints and improve service delivery, especially to the poor and under-served areas and groups. The method lends itself to being a citizen monitoring of services system. It also sets performance benchmarks and increases competition, even between the providers of monopoly municipal services.

Figure 1: Citizens’s opinions are essential

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