Mobilising and enabling civil society to promote citizen engagement in urban spaces has been a focus of PRIA’s work. We have developed innovative training pedagogies using participatory learning and trained elected councillors of local urban bodies, giving special attention to the learning needs of women councillors, to make city governance effective, transparent, accountable and participatory.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the systemic, capacity, and planning deficits of India’s urban governance. To make Indian cities resilient, urban development inclusive and sustainable, urban planning and governance, capacities of officials and elected representatives, and procedures for citizen-centric governance needs serious attention.
Informality has been a way of life in India’s urbanisation process, and imposing order might produce confrontations as the perception of urban planners is different from the marginalised who reside in and use the city. The urban development narrative needs tactical and deliberate plans to incorporate informality into the planning process, and link it with governance.
Migrant labourers have equal rights to access decent basic services, safe workplaces and dignified labour. We need to have a structural system to understand the numbers, patterns, needs and concerns of migration. While civil society organisations have an important role in collecting data from the grassroots to showcase the problems migrants face in a city, the perspective of the government and other stakeholders needs to change to include them in policies and plans.
Municipal governments have limited capacities to engage with local communities. Civil society, through mobilisation and conversations on citizen concerns and needs, provides the interface to promote and scale up citizen-centric governance.
Upscaling citizen engagement in urban planning and governance processes needs spaces that sustain trust and build engagement. Ward Committees and Mohalla Sabhas, which are legally mandated spaces to promote decentralised governance, are very useful to build consensus and resolve conflicts, tailoring solutions that address diverse needs among communities.
Often the language used in climate change discussions is highly westernised and technical. Civil society intermediation can demystify the science of climate change; find a common, simple language to make things understandable and contextualised at the local level for policymakers and citizens; and help municipalities adopt a more innovative, climate adaptive approach to build urban resilience.
It is the elected leader who knows the issues faced by the people, and how to use available resources smartly to improve and sustain equitable and decent living conditions for all citizens in a city.
Investing in the training of local elected representatives, with continuous learning and communication, will bridge the gap between policies and governance processes, so that cities are not only seen as engines of economic growth but also of inclusiveness.
Peer-to-peer mentoring and support by experienced councillors of the next generation of leaders, and fostering relationships of collaboration and cooperation among elected councillors from across the country can build pressure through collective efforts to (re)claim their decision-making authority and empower local decision-making.
Engaged Citizen Responsive city: Stories of Changes
Panchayat Finances - A Case Study of Kerala- (A Summary of the Findings and Suggestions)
Women’s Leadership: Towards Gender Mainstreaming in Local Self Governance
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