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Citizens play a critical role in advocating for transparency, holding public institutions accountable, and contributing to their effectiveness. They also provide innovative solutions to complex development challenges. Growing evidence suggests that, under the right conditions, meaningful forms of civic and citizen engagement (CCE) can lead to better governance, citizen empowerment, more constructive citizen-state relations, strengthened public service delivery, and, ultimately, enhanced development effectiveness and well-being.

In recent years, global research and practice have placed greater emphasis on making citizen engagement and social accountability practices more strategic and effective. The increasing complexity of policymaking and the failure to adequately address some of humanity's most pressing challenges ¡ª such as climate change, health emergencies, growing inequality, conflict, and violence ¡ª have prompted governments, development institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs), and citizens to rethink approaches to dialogue, decision-making, and collective action, ensuring these efforts are more meaningful and impactful. There is now heightened focus on understanding and overcoming obstacles to effective engagement, as well as analyzing what works and why.

Enhanced civic and citizen engagement can have impacts in critical investment areas. In the renewable energy transition, active citizen participation can drive the adoption of sustainable practices and local solutions, fostering community support and social license for green projects that otherwise might not be viable. Similarly, in last-mile efforts for health care and pandemic preparedness, engaging citizens can improve the responsiveness and effectiveness of health initiatives, ensuring that remote and vulnerable populations receive timely and adequate care and are willing and able to receive critical interventions like vaccines.  

However, the outcomes of meaningful engagement are highly context-specific and depend on the capacity and willingness of both governments and citizens to engage. Social, political, economic, environmental, cultural, geographic, and gender dynamics all shape the opportunities and scope for effective citizen engagement. Understanding the context in which CCE practices occur and supporting enabling conditions are essential for achieving results. This is particularly important in the current global context of shrinking civic space.

Last Updated: Aug 18, 2025

Renewal of the World Bank¡¯s strategy for Civic and Citizen Engagement

In the current context of multiple global crises, the need and demand for deep and impactful CCE has never been greater. A new approach to CCE is required to address the climate emergency, persistent poverty, exclusion, and conflict and fragility, as well as to achieve the World Bank Group's goal to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet. The specifically commits to enhancing citizen engagement, social accountability, and partnerships with civil society to ensure development impact, enhance accountability and governance, and evolve the institution's operating model.

ľ¹ÏÓ°Ôº is operationalizing this commitment through its new civic and citizen engagement results indicator, as reflected in the (see Annex 12, pages 98-99) to strengthen the quality and effectiveness of IDA. The new indicator is also reflected in the global IDA forums, where consultations with various civil society stakeholders emphasized the need for the Bank to renew its approach to civic and citizen engagement (see the , page 6). This new composite indicator, ¡°Quality of Civic/Citizen Engagement,¡± is included in the Organizational Effectiveness and Efficiency Dashboard, which is a component of the renewed Corporate Scorecard, to measure the Bank's performance in CCE over time. Unlike the previous citizen engagement indicator that operated only at the project level, the new CCE indicator bridges both the project and country levels, identifies good practices, and highlights areas where more attention is needed. 

According to  conducted in FY24, the World Bank has largely succeeded in meeting the corporate requirements outlined in its 2014 Strategic Framework for Mainstreaming Citizen Engagement. However, these minimal requirements do not represent an adequate benchmark for meaningful and impactful CCE. As a stronger, more strategic, systems-oriented and partnership-based approach to CCE is required, the strategic review identified the following strategic objectives: 

1. Improve the quality and outcomes of project-level CCE;
2. Strengthen country systems for CCE; 
3. Support enabling conditions for CCE; 
4. Enhance partnership and support for civil society; and 
5. Ensure an institutional support system for CCE that is fit-for-purpose. 

To achieve these strategic objectives, the new CCE strategy will propose a systems-oriented and partnership-based approach that responds to the call for enhanced CCE and strengthened CSO collaboration, while also reflecting corporate priorities for simplification and delivery of impact at scale. The strategy will present a selective, tailored portfolio approach that focuses on priority policy and investment areas where citizen feedback and CSO involvement are most likely to accelerate reforms and enhance outcomes, considering country-specific factors.

ľ¹ÏÓ°Ôº also recently launched . This facility finances and supports CSOs and social innovators to address global development challenges, advancing the World Bank¡¯s mission to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity on a livable planet. CIVIC leverages solutions and approaches from CSOs that help enable and deliver strengthened civic and citizen engagement in collaboration with governments and World Bank programs.  

Current Efforts and Next Steps in Renewing the CCE Strategy

Ongoing efforts and next steps include:

• Integrating corporate commitments into the ongoing rethink of the country development and partnership model;

• Developing a new Civic and Citizen Engagement Framework to succeed the 2014 Strategic Framework alongside an operational plan to support and fund regions in strengthening portfolio-level approaches to building country systems for CCE;

• Creating a new monitoring system for annual reviews of CCE at the country level, aggregated by region and globally;

• Developing guidance tools/checklists for assessing Borrowers¡¯ Frameworks for meaningful CCE, leveraging synergies between the new CCE strategy and Environmental and Social Framework (ESF); and

• Conducting formal consultations with civil society and other external stakeholders as the CCE indicator and new CCE Framework are developed.

For more information about this process, please contact the Civic and Citizen Engagement team at the Social Development Department.

Last Updated: Aug 18, 2025

ľ¹ÏÓ°Ôº monitors and reports on the its efforts to achieve its citizen engagement targets on a quarterly basis for projects approved since July 2015. To date, the following progress has been made:

• Citizen-oriented design: 100 percent of Investment Project Financing (IPF)s approved in Fiscal Year (FY) 24 had a citizen-oriented design, meaning, they had at least one citizen engagement mechanism included in the project design. This represents significant progress from the baseline of 60 percent in FY14 and reflects a clear mainstreaming of citizen engagement mechanisms in IPF operations across Global Practices and regions.

• Beneficiary feedback indicators in the Results Framework: 97 percent of IPFs approved in FY24 included a beneficiary feedback indicator in the Results Framework, compared to the baseline of 27 percent in FY14. This demonstrates progress in mainstreaming beneficiary feedback indicators in IPF operations.
• Reporting on Beneficiary feedback indicators by the third year of implementation: 80 percent of IPFs approved in FY20 reported on beneficiary feedback indicators by their third year of implementation i.e., FY23, relative to the baseline of 20 percent of projects approved in FY14. The quality of citizen engagement tools is steadily improving: while tools such as stakeholder consultations, grievance redress mechanisms, and satisfaction surveys for obtaining citizen feedback on analyses, alternatives, and decisions remain the most common citizen engagement mechanisms in projects, the share of approaches that facilitate more intensive citizen engagement have increased recently for both beneficiary feedback indicators and other citizen engagement mechanisms. These include collaborative or participatory approaches to engaging citizens in project decision-making, as well as involving citizens, CSOs, and third-party monitors in the measuring, recording, and tracking of project results and outcomes to improve performance, promote transparency, and assign accountability.

Through the use of rigorous impact evaluations, including randomized control trial (RCT) methodology, the Bank is generating evidence on the impact of citizen engagement and social accountability interventions as well as lessons for enhancing impact in future program design. For example:

• In?Indonesia, the World Bank supports the government to improve education service delivery in remote villages through the?. This project empowers citizens in remote areas to hold teachers accountable and introduces an assessment which provides a low-stakes and frequent means to benchmark student aptitude by making learning outcomes more accessible to citizens. After a year of the KIAT Guru program, student learning outcomes improved from a baseline of 37 percent to 49 percent in math, and from 37 percent to 50 percent in language.
• In?Cambodia, the??(ISAF) program was designed to as a partnership between government and civil society organizations aimed at strengthening accountability and the quality of service delivery in 757 commune councils, 1,404 primary schools, and 605 health centers covering 75 percent of Cambodia¡¯s provinces, 62 percent of districts and 56 percent of communes. An??found that the program significantly increased service provider transparency with enhanced availability of information on services provided as well as budget and performance data. Improvements were also found in the increased use of health centers, reduced wait times for service as well as more polite staff.
• Meanwhile, in Ethiopia, an ??of the?Ethiopia Social Accountability Program (ESAP)?found that the program increased access to information, citizen participation and citizen satisfaction with public service delivery. For example, survey respondents from ESAP target communities were 10 percent more likely to indicate that their local community can contribute to improving service delivery.

For good CCE practice cases from World Bank operations, please refer to Annex 2 of .

Last Updated: Aug 18, 2025

CSOs are key actors in the development space, and the World Bank has historically benefited from various partnerships with them. These partnerships involve operational engagement to enhance development outcomes and eliciting CSO input into Bank policies and programs. For instance, as part of the IDA21 Replenishment discussions, the World Bank engaged with CSOs through regional and global IDA forums, where participants emphasized the need to renew the Bank¡¯s approach to CCE.

ľ¹ÏÓ°Ôº recently launched a new finance and support facility dedicated to CSOs and other social economy actors. CIVIC is designed to leverage innovative solutions and support efforts from civil society and social innovators to tackle some of the world¡¯s most pressing development challenges. It aims to advance the World Bank¡¯s mission to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity on a livable planet. The WBG is actively seeking foundation partners and co-investors for this flagship initiative. The inaugural platform under CIVIC¡¯s framework, Green Accountability, provides CSOs with grant financing and technical support for ecosystem building and innovation acceleration, ensuring that climate finance effectively reaches and benefits the communities most impacted by climate change. Green Accountability works to not only drive change at the local level, but also vertically integrates local voices and solutions into regional, national, and global forums. Through a networked approach, the platform connects northern and southern ecosystems, fostering knowledge exchange, streamlined financing, collaboration, and co-design at every level. 

The Civic and Citizen Engagement team within the Global Department for Social Development actively collaborates with CSOs on the CCE agenda through the World Bank-CSO Working Group on Citizen Engagement. This monthly meeting, held since 2017 with Washington-based CSO representatives, provides an opportunity to address CSO queries and explore collaboration opportunities.

CIVICAI Collective

The CIVICAI Collective is a global platform dedicated to connecting civic technology solutions with public administration, with a particular focus on leveraging artificial intelligence for enhanced citizen engagement in low-capacity environments. We bring together CSOs, government agencies, technologists, academia, and private sector leaders in a structured, action-driven collaboration.

We have launched a CIVICAI Collective LinkedIn group to foster discussions and share insights. Join us here . While anyone can view posts, only members can actively participate by commenting and creating posts.  
 

Our Key Initiatives 

The CIVICAI Collective is actively engaged in several initiatives:  

• Digital CE Tools Catalog: We developed a comprehensive catalog to help World Bank staff, government officials, and CSOs discover digital tools that enhance citizen participation.

• Monthly Webinars & Forums: We host interactive webinars featuring experts discussing AI-driven citizen engagement and participatory governance. Recent topics include data-driven decision-making and inclusive development strategies. . 
   

By joining the CIVICAI Collective, you become part of a global effort to advance civic technology for meaningful citizen participation. Connect with us and be part of the conversation!

Last Updated: Aug 18, 2025