Scaling-up Citizen Engagement for Inclusive Urban Governance

Improving urban governance is urgent for India. A rapid urbanisation has necessitated the Union and State Governments to increase public investments in the cities. The industries have been called upon to accelerate their investments for bridging the infrastructure gaps in Indian cities. Following the legacies set by the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM), in the past few years a host of new national flagship missions and programmes have been established to accelerate urban development.

Despite many of these programmes mandate ‘putting citizen at the centre’, citizen engagement in city’s policy development and decision making remains absent. The euphoria created through Swachh Bharat Mission and Smart Cities Mission to involve people in visioning, planning, implementing and monitoring these programmes prematurely died down, primarily because cities could not create a viable ‘civic infrastructure’ that fosters robust citizen engagement in a continuous and sustainable manner.

The 74th Constitutional Amendment Act (Part IX-A of the Constitution) made provision for Ward Committees (even with its limitations). Under the JnNURM, implementation of Community Participation Law (CPL) was mooted as one of the vital governance reforms. The CPL made provisions for Area Sabhas (in line with Gram Sabhas in Panchayat) and Ward Sabhas. Both have been ignored. In the absence of any universalised institutional space, citizen engagement in planning (spatial as well as programmatic), implementation and monitoring of development programmes as well as in city governance (other than voting to elect Mayors and councillors) is largely missing in Indian cities.

Urban Local Bodies are vital institutions to make cities inclusive. Their decisions (governance) and actions (development) affect millions of city dwellers, particularly the urban poor who are characterised by informalities. However, the capacities of ULBs to meaningfully engage with citizens, particularly the cities’ informals, is abysmally low. This has been discernible at the time of COVID-19 pandemic. Most cities failed to communicate effectively with its citizens. Again, it points to the fact that the city administrations have not invested in building and nurturing viable citizen associations. In the absence of organised civil society and citizen associations, most cities rely on top-down communication which is not only ineffective but also exclusionary. Most urban informals, who are largely unorganised and thus voiceless, do not have access to information and communication which perpetuates their lack of access to public services.

A handful civil society organisations (CSOs) and citizen interest groups in mega and metro cities have created some spaces for engagement (through Basti Vikas Samiti, Resident Welfare Association, etc.) with limited, outreach, sustainability and success. The participation deficits, particularly in small- and medium-sized cities are noticeable. This has adversely impacted the transparency and accountability of both the elected councillors and municipal officials.

Among other, one of the reasons why constructive citizen engagement and voices of the informals is limited in urban governance is the lack of capacities (including attitude, willingness, knowledge and skills) of CSOs. Unlike in rural India, very few CSOs are active in urban areas. A large section of CSOs still believe that growing urbanisation is counterproductive to India’s development. Poverty and inequality are still a rural concern. Many of the CSOs, currently engaged in urban issues are largely concerned with implementing development projects (focussing on service delivery) on their own without supporting other CSOs to understand the changing realities of urban poverty and strategizing interventions to address the urban inequalities and challenges faced by the urban informals and poor.

Indian CSOs need to be capacitated to appreciate the nature of urban poverty and informality and the means to address related issues. A facilitative funding along with a deeper analytical skills and strategies are required for CSOs to foster a conducive local eco-system which can facilitate citizen engagement in general and that by the urban poor in particular for engaging city governance institutions.

Technology can play an important role in advancing citizen engagement. Notwithstanding, the digital divide needs to be addressed in an innovative manner, so that limited or lack of access to digital technology does not become an additional barrier for urban informals to engage and communicate with city governance institutions as well as to access urban basic services.

Twenty first century city governance needs an active citizenry to improve its effectiveness, transparency and accountability. The city governments should be able to harness civic energy for solving some of the ‘wicked’ challenges that Indian cities face today. The civil societies with enhanced capacities can be partners in finding collaborative solutions. While a few innovative but sporadic efforts have been made by some progressive cities as well as civil societies, the need for consolidating this learning cannot be overstated for scaling up and institutionalisation of citizen engagement for inclusive and sustainable urban governance.

As Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) completes 40 years, it recommits to facilitate and strengthen citizen engagement in city governance. It is in this context, PRIA in partnership with Janaagraha and Bridgespan India will co-organise a Samvad – Conversation on “Scaling-up Citizen Engagement for Inclusive Urban Governance” to seek answers to the following key questions:

• What innovations have been fostered to promote citizen engagement in urban governance and how these innovations can be institutionalised and scaled up?
• What form(s) of collaborative learning will help achieve increased capacities of civil society to scale up citizen engagement?

For more detailed webinar report: Click here

For webinar recording: Click here