Creating Platform To Stimulate Govt’s Engagement With Citizens

Unarguably, the sustained advocacy on the need to strengthen the open government initiative received a fresh boost with the federal government’s formal unveiling of the Presidential Delivery Tracker (PDT) and an accompanying website developed by the Central Development Coordination Unit (CDCU).

The CDCU is a citizen centered mobile app designed to enable citizens to assess project implementation and results delivery in order to strengthen public accountability and improve service delivery by government institutions. It is designed to also track, review and periodically report the activities of MDAs, performances of ministers and permanent secretaries, among others, in the delivery of their ministerial mandates.

As a citizen-based mobile tracking app, the PDT allows citizens to send on-the-spot feedback on project implementation as part of the overall measures aimed at promoting public accountability and improving service delivery by government institutions. Indeed, the move is yet another step in ensuring the active participation of citizens in the governance process as advocated by the forerunners of Open Government Partnership.

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It is worthy of mentioning that the Open Government Partnership is a multilateral initiative that aims to secure concrete commitments from governments to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. It seeks to promote access to information, civic participation and public accountability.

The place of citizen engagement, which is a form of interaction between citizens and their government, in a vibrant democracy, cannot be under emphasised. Perhaps this understanding underscored the decision of the federal government to launch the PDT, which is geared towards tracking of key projects and programmes being delivered towards the achievement of the current administration’s nine priority areas.

LEADERSHIP Weekend recalls that in 2019, the administration mapped out nine priorities as key results areas against which to measure government performance in service delivery. The priorities include stabilise the macro-economy; achieve food security; ensure energy sufficiency in power and petroleum products; improve transportation and other infrastructure; drive industrialisation focusing on SMEs; improve health, education and productivity of Nigerians; enhance social inclusion and reduce poverty; fight corruption and improve governance; and provide security for all citizens.

Understandably, these priority areas are specified in ministerial mandates in a bid to improve service delivery performance management within all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government.
Years after the implementation of the projects and programmes by all ministries in line with their performance bonds, the government decided to upload those on the PDT website and citizens through their mobile phones can have firsthand information regarding all the projects.

The PDT App is therefore a co-creation platform that aims to connect citizens to governance in Nigeria by increasing citizens’ access to the federal government’s priority policies, programmes, and projects.
Essentially, the app seeks to promote transparency and expand access to reporting on the presidential priority policies, programmes and projects by incorporating citizens as the third layer of reporting to offer vital information that will facilitate effective service delivery.
Addressing a gathering on the formal occasion of the launch of the website, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha said it was setup to track, review and periodically report to the President on performance of ministries in the delivery of the ministerial mandates towards the achievement of the priority areas.
Mustapha noted that the idea has driven the service delivery initiative to incorporate a systematic feedback mechanism from the citizens “in recognition of the critical roles of the citizens in promoting inclusive and citizen-centered governance”.
“The objective of developing the Citizens App and the website is to make it possible for citizens to report accurately and provide feedback on the implementation of government programmes and projects; participate in the coordination of federal government interventions in their localities and in the implementation of government projects” Mustapha enthused.
Continuing, the SGF listed other aims of the app to include highlighting critical issues regarding government programmes and projects that hinder the delivery of key services to citizens; advocate and sensitise other citizens and stakeholders on their civic responsibilities by encouraging the use of the citizens’ feedback platform to hold the government accountable.
For her part, the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed said it “will help to advance the process of embedding performance management processes and align the performance framework for tracking service delivery by MDAs”.
She expressed optimism that the launch of the website will mark the beginning of a new era of collaboration, exchange of knowledge and good practices around common development challenges amongst all MDAs. “Once that is achieved, it will help the nation address common pressing development challenges and advance the process of embedding performance management processes”.
It was gathered that the app is designed to allow citizens to report on the priority projects and programmes being implemented in their environments even as it provides the opportunity for citizens to provide assessment on the level of implementation.
Fundamentally, the citizens’ engagement initiative is in line with increasing global demand by civil society and citizens to have greater say in public decision-making, and the desire among many governments to improve trust, and be more inclusive and responsive to citizens’ needs.
The whole essence is to enhance the participation of people in local decision-making processes in a sustainable manner, which goes beyond listening to people but to make the development process more inclusive. The CDCU intends to empower citizens to make their voices heard, build citizen engagement programmes that work, and participation that increases benefits if discussed with the people.
In a terse remark, Development Director, Foreign and Commonwealth Office in Nigeria, Chris Pycroft lauded the initiative, describing the delivery tracker as an important incentive that should be encouraged across the three tiers of government.
“It is important that citizens not only provide feedback on the implementation of government projects but that citizens can demand actions if projects are not delivered.
“Citizens participation in governance ensures that there’s an explicit understanding that the government will deliver essential services and in return citizens will perform their civic duties” Pycroft added
It is expected that the PDT and CDCU website will serve as means of disseminating information on public service delivery to the citizens, receive feedback from the populace, and identify/suggest ways of improvement. Additionally, it will also foster citizens’ voice, discussion, and debate to demand for service improvement.
Tellingly, though coming relatively late in the life of this administration, the launch of PDT and CDCU website will further consolidate the move to open up governance activities and raise the bar for citizens participation.
Indeed, this falls perfectly in line with the Open Government Partnership initiative that is championing the move for government entities to establish mechanisms for citizen feedback for more efficient public-responsive services aimed at deepening trust in government.

As the SGF rightly noted, for the platform to serve its intended purpose, stakeholders must create awareness about it so citizens can utilize them as expected.
Interestingly, the civil society has committed to work with the government in seeing that the values for which the project was conceived are delivered.

Obialunanma Nnaobi-Ayodele is Nigeria co-Chair (civil society) Open Government Partnership. She listed some of the tangible results the civil society expects to see from the use of the application to include such that it shows the measure of transparency of government and “the measure of trust, to what degree do citizens trust that their engagement with this app will translate to positive outcomes”.
While urging the media to give the app the much needed visibility and push to ensure that every Nigerian who has access to a smart phone is aware of its existence and can contribute to it, Nnaobi-Ayodele expressed optimism that the app, “when fully operational will encourage public action, contribute to building trust in government and generally build upon our democracy”