Governing ‘For’ Citizens Is Becoming Governing ‘With’ Citizens.

Governments more than ever are under pressure to implement a new system of distributed governance that is focused on service, solutions and collaboration. Developing new capabilities for facilitating relationships with external partners that allow for flexibility, efficiency and co-creation has led governments to outsourcing and unbundling services as a way of accessing external expertise and delivering services more cost-effectively – from within their own entities but also from the private sector.

“The accessibility and affordability of social, mobile and cloud technologies allow groups of ordinary citizens to chip away at tough societal problems by the hundreds, thousands or even millions. This technology-enabled approach to problem solving takes many forms, including micro-tasking and micro-volunteerism, crowdsourcing, peer-to-peer models and prize challenges.” —Gov2020

Some enterprising start-ups already recognize the huge opportunity to radically innovate public services such as healthcare, transportation and education, with sites such as education-focused giants donorschoose.org and adoptaclassroom.org, reducing some of the pressure on government for capital improvements and serving as models for other services. Engagement in politics is also increasing as the citizens who experience a policy’s impact most directly, work alongside its designers.  Image: Gov2020