Title: The Importance of Citizen Participation | Voxcitio
Headings: The Importance of Citizen Participation
The Importance of Citizen Participation
Brendan Tobin
The Value of Citizen Participation
Various Forms of Citizen Participation
The Challenge
Getting the People Interested
Ultimately, Engagement is Better

Content: Various Forms of Citizen Participation
Citizen participation is represented in many ways: Direct outreach to citizens
Direct citizen’s participation
Public meetings
Information campaigns
Independent citizen action groups
The Challenge
In large democracies, direct participation of citizens in the governance process poses a big challenge on account of large populations, even in small pockets. Illiteracy, political naivety, and insufficient mechanisms to incorporate citizen participation pose further challenges. It helps the government to find out which are the public's preferences by making it more effective, democratic, transparent and legal. This is why, it’s so important to share the governance with citizens, giving to them more space where their inputs can be provided. Citizens should be considered a partner in governance, sharing with them responsibilities and elaborating together local plans of action. So far, engaging citizens in policy-making allows governments to obtain new sources of ideas and exchange information, during the decision-making process. It develops a process of education where citizens and policy-makers when working together during the decision-making process by trying through serious efforts to do the best for their community, reflects about various issues. Although the process of citizen’s participation is not simple, it’s important because citizen’s involvement makes the implementation of a decision or a policy more likely. The public would be not likely to assist with implementation of a decision, plan or policy unless public officials have their constituents on board with a particular decision plan.