The Role of citizen engagement in civil society

There is a growing belief that the success of almost all the approaches of citizen participation depends on how well citizens and users of services are informed about their government's performance. This article presents the experience developed in this area by Ukraine, through the "People's Voice Project", which is a three-year project that aims to strengthen the capacity of both citizen groups and officials to interact with each other in order to enhance the overall quality of governance in selected cities. It thus describes the mechanisms aimed at increasing public awareness and public education developed in this framework, as well as the advocacy and public consultation mechanisms put in place. It then summarises the way participatory approaches, including public service delivery surveys, monitoring, advisory boards, citizen juries, civic journalism and NGO coalition building, have helped reinforce public accountability and transparency through monitoring and feedback generated by the public. The authors conclude on the need for Ukrainians to be educated about the participation process and how they, as individuals and collectively, can make it work; as well as for local government officals to be educated about the role and importance of public participation in the policy-making process.