2023 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"

The origins of the experience started within the thematic session of Digital Services and Innovation in the Local Democracy Labs held on June 8th, 2022 when researchers met local government officials that are part of ICLD programmes to discuss pressing issues faced by the municipalities, where the use of digital tools was brought up for discussion by representatives from Pemba Town Council (Zambia). 

With an Impact Research Grant, researchers aimed to help Pemba Town Council to solve operational dilemmas and improve service delivery by providing a roadmap for the implementation of digital tools in the form of a digital strategy which was the main objective of the research. The research was qualitative in nature and was both exploratory (aimed at exploring ways to improve service delivery through digital tools) and descriptive (aimed at describing the digital challenges facing Pemba Town Council in delivering services to the community). 

The research used an action research design as it was deemed the most appropriate to answer the research question “How can digital tools be used to improve service delivery for Pemba Town Council?”. During the first two months of the project, virtual meetings with the Pemba Town Council team were held in order to further understand their needs. 

Following these engagements, two of the researchers went on a three-day working trip to Pemba from 9-11 November 2022 to connect with different stakeholders, understand their local context, and collaboratively design solutions. For this purpose, it was relevant to meet with stakeholders who represented different actors in the scenario - so both citizens and local authority representatives - and also with people from different backgrounds and access to public services.

To present the results of the process, some very interesting points can be presented, first of all, the research helped to inform the development of a digital strategy that helps the Council to contextualise the actual problem and plan on how to go about it. Secondly, the research contributed to creating awareness and changing perceptions around digital tools in general. Thirdly, as a result of the research, the council has decided to make use of social media as a platform to share useful information. Fourthly, as a recommendation from the engagements, the Council has committed to the construction of 6 centres in the community which will double as e-centers and community hubs.

One of the most interesting parts of this research is that depending on the nature of the action research project, there may never be a clear end to the study. There may be a need to continue going through subsequent cycles of planning, acting, observing, and developing a new course of action that can go into the following year. Moreover, while this project has been completed for now, the planning, acting, reflecting, etc will continue throughout the digital transformation process and Pemba Town Council will continue to pick lessons in each action or implementation phase, to be applied in the next.

More information:

• ICLD Blog post (External link)
• ICLD Project Summary (External link)