A Users' Guide to Measuring Local Governance

Key actors/stakeholders
Different actors can drive or manage the Citizen
Report Cards process. Usually, a prominent local
NGO takes the lead in initiating the CRC.
Independent consortia, consisting of government
officials, civil society representatives, academics
and the media, can also provide an alternative to
lead the process. It is also important, although not
essential, to secure the buy-in of the serviceproviders.
CRCs are of interest to a variety of stakeholders.
Civil society organizations can use the CRC to
demand improvements in service provision.
Governments can use the CRC to strengthen
public agencies that provide services; to find out
where private providers are performing below
expectations (when the service is contracted out);
to evaluate the quality of local service provision
(when the service is decentralised); or to check the
effectiveness of public spending. Anti-corruption
bodies can use the CRC to pinpoint areas that are
prone to corruption and to adopt appropriate
measures to combat the same.
Results reporting format
Results are expressed quantitatively – for instance,
the percentage of users satisfied with the services,
the percentage of users who encounter
corruption, the average speed money (bribe) paid.
Results may be presented as the average of all
respondents, or they may be broken down by
sub-groups (e.g. poor and non-poor respondents,
women and men). Box 5 presents an illustration
from a CRC. application in Bangalore, India.
Coverage
Citizen Report Cards were first used in India in the
cities of Ahmedabad, Pune and Bangalore. They
were later applied in other Indian cities including
Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bhubaneswar and
Chennai. The CRC has also been used in Ukraine,
China, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam,
Philippines and Indonesia in the Asian continent;
Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Rwanda and
Uganda in Africa; and Peru and Argentina in South
America.
Timeline
Initiated and tested in 1993-94. Application ongoing.
Gender focus
CRC results can easily be disaggregated by gender.
The customization of CRC to the local context also
offers ample scope for assessing gender specific
aspects of service delivery, as relevant.
Poverty focus
The results obtained from Citizens Report Cards
are usually disaggregated into poor and non-poor
categories, in order to demonstrate the level of
access, as well as the quality of service provided to
the poorer and marginalised sections of the
community. The customization of CRC to the local
context also offers ample scope for assessing
aspects of service delivery which are of specific
interest to poor and marginalized groups, as
relevant.
Strengths
• The CRC provides a quantitative, simple and
unambiguous measure of satisfaction with
public services, determined through feedback
directly provided by citizens (especially the
poor). It is thus an effective diagnostic tool that
can help in identifying gaps and inequalities in
service delivery.
• It can also help in assessing and improving
citizens’ awareness of their rights and
responsibilities vis-à-vis various public services
and service-providing agencies, both public
and private.
• It can be a means to improve accountability by
revealing where the institutions responsible
for service provision have not fulfilled their
obligations, especially when the monitoring
and evaluation are weak.
• It is a benchmarking tool that can monitor
improvements or deterioration in service
quality over time.
• It is a tool to reveal hidden costs, such as bribes
or private resources, which are spent to
compensate for poor service provision.
• The CRC can increase direct communication
and dialogue on needs and priorities between
users and service-providers, without
intermediation and/or bias by (elected or
other) representatives. It is thus a tool for
supporting direct democracy.
• The CRC can trigger further studies and the
formulation of strategies for internal reform or
the need for privatisation.
104 UNDP Oslo Governance Centre