IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wdevel/v108y2018icp145-156.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Bridging the information gap between citizens and local governments: Evidence from a civic participation strengthening program in Rwanda

Author

Listed:
  • Protik, Ali E.
  • Nichols-Barrer, Ira
  • Berman, Jacqueline
  • Sloan, Matt

Abstract

This paper evaluates a program sponsored by the Millennium Challenge Corporation to promote civic participation in local governance in Rwanda. Called the Strengthening Civic Participation, the program supported civil society organizations advocating for local issues and trained district government officials to increase responsiveness to citizens. Our evaluation uses a stratified random assignment design, whereby districts were matched on baseline characteristics and randomly assigned to either a treatment or a control group. Using nationally representative household-level survey data, we find a pattern of small negative effects on citizens’ perceived access to government information, perceived personal influence on government officials, and satisfaction with government services. There were no discernible impacts on citizens’ awareness of government meetings, familiarity with government officials, or knowledge of local government affairs. We investigate the underlying mechanisms that produced these impacts using qualitative interviews and find that the program succeeded in encouraging citizens to question local government policies more openly in some circumstances.

Suggested Citation

  • Protik, Ali E. & Nichols-Barrer, Ira & Berman, Jacqueline & Sloan, Matt, 2018. "Bridging the information gap between citizens and local governments: Evidence from a civic participation strengthening program in Rwanda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 145-156.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:108:y:2018:i:c:p:145-156
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.03.016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X18300986
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.03.016?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Devindi Geekiyanage & Terrence Fernando & Kaushal Keraminiyage, 2023. "Modelling Interrelationships of the Factors Impeding Community Engagement in Risk-Sensitive Urban Planning: Evidence from Sri Lanka," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-22, October.
    2. Bennett, Kyle M. & Campbell, Jeanna M. & Hays, Scott P., 2022. "Engaging youth for positive change: A mixed methods evaluation of site level program implementation & outcomes," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    3. Morag Goodwin, 2022. "Evaluating the Success of Decentralisation in Facilitating the Inclusion of Rwanda’s Marginalised," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(5), pages 2251-2271, October.
    4. Pandey, Vivek & Singh, Shyam & Kumar, Deepak, 2022. "COVID-19, information management by local governments, and food consumption," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    5. Kosec, Katrina & Wantchekon, Leonard, 2020. "Can information improve rural governance and service delivery?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Governance; Democracy; Information; Civic participation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
    • O22 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Project Analysis
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:108:y:2018:i:c:p:145-156. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.