Governance Reform and Public Service Provision: Institutional Resilience and State-Society Synergy

For more than two decades, national and international policy reformers have sought to improve public service provision by applying transparency, participation and accountability innovations. Relevant initiatives often pursue collaborative governance strategies to bring public servants, citizens and civil society organizations together to generate feedback and promote problem-solving from the front lines. These efforts support the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets 16.6 and 16.7, which respectively call for developing “effective, accountable and transparent institutions” and ensuring “responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels”.

This brief review of institutionally resilient participatory oversight reforms in four countries spotlights how hybrid, collaborative governance can work in practice—in cases where innovations have already been scaled up.