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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.
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