Our Teams

The PGRG forms one of the three important domains of PAC. The niche until recently was in providing user perspectives on service delivery through Citizen Report Cards (CRCs). The CRC is PAC’s unique flagship product that uses user feedback on public services as a research-led reform tool to be used by civil society to demand better services, and the service provider to diagnose gaps and initiate or strengthen reform measures. The niche now will be extended to include involvement of all relevant stakeholders towards achieving the goal of service delivery improvement through participatory governance.

Carry out CRCs with current partner NGOs, government departments and other funding agencies willing to fund the CRC by providing on-site / off-site support. Network with the other teams at PAC and forge more partnerships along the same lines 

• Comparison of findings with standards and norms
• Activity mapping
• Comprehensive reports
• Active partnership internally with the other core teams on various programmes/projects 
  

4. Conduct workshops to train different stakeholders such as NGOs, Government officials, funding agency representatives etc in the use of the CRC approach.

In the next five years, PGRG’s strategic plans involve enhancing the scope of research work that can and should be carried out under governance and service delivery. Some of the projects that have been planned include:

• A Citizen Report Card of Greater Bangalore’s public services
• Carry out CRCs that would create benchmarks in new settings and with new stakeholders
• Sector-related projects with incorporation of other social accountability tools
• Periodic stock taking exercises with partners to assess CRCs and other social accountability tools used
• National-level CRC of five services as a stock-taking exercise of the state of public services after 10 years with nation-wide dissemination of findings.
• Preparation of revised e-learning courses, toolkits, manuals based on past experiences 
  

• Wider acceptability of the CRC due to expanded scope and incorporation of more tools, and
• Knowledge generation on other social accountability tools

Team Members

Citizen Action Support Group

Responding to the current challenges and constraints and guiding the Citizen Action Support Group’s (CASG) initiatives into the not-so-distant horizon calls for innovation and rethinking of our strategies whilst building on the existing strengths and achievements.

In terms of advocacy strategies, achieving the two ultimate outcomes accompanied by the attributes of better governance involves a complex interplay of various intermediate outcomes that indeed act as the stepping stones. Some of the plausible intermediate indicators are:

• Citizen groups across sectors/issues/themes and spatial levels formed
• Capacity of the civil society groups for civic engagement enhanced
• Coalitions of interested individuals and citizen groups at different levels created
• Media interest created and sustained over a period of time
• Demand driven knowledge generated and widely disseminated
• Public awareness on their rights and entitlements, and institutions, processes, issues and problems of governance enhanced
• Engagement of citizens with the state enhanced and strengthened
• Civic skills and attitudes and other civic responsible behaviors of citizens enhanced 
• Collective actions organized with a multiplier effect in various settings
• Informal alliances between civil society, political and bureaucratic allies formed
• Public policies influenced
• Changes in the legal framework such as amendments to laws and rules, and enactment of new laws effected
• Changes in the administrative system effected
• Staff of public authorities become friendlier, more courteous and responsive
• Communication between authorities and citizens is eased

• To develop replicable models and requisite tools for civic engagement
• To enhance the capacity of civil society organizations for civic engagement through action research and application of replicable models and tools in different parts of the country
• To institutionalize democracy (civic) education focused on children and youth
• To complement PAC’s research activities by providing advocacy support
• To effectively respond to topical issues and problems of local governance in Bangalore, the laboratory for PAC’s citizen action
• To develop a systematic approach for impact tracking and documentation
• As the new opportunities and challenges posed by Right to Information, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, National Urban Renewal Mission etc. are beckoning for concerted action by the civil society, the infrastructure available at the new premises and the scope for resource mobilization both make out a strong case for strengthening in-house expertise in the area of capacity enhancement of civil society organizations for civic engagement. 
• Sustaining and expanding the ongoing initiatives in core areas such as electoral reforms, anticorruption, transparency and public accountability mechanisms, democracy education and Right to Information are integral to a long term perspective plan while exploring new spaces and themes for citizen action support.

Team Members

Environmental Governance Group

Vision

Improved quality of life of the poor and marginalized sections of the communities in the environmentally affected (coastal, upland, semi-arid and arid) areas in India

Thematic areas

• Action Research - developing Climate Change Score Cards, Climate Change Monitoring tools.

• Capacity Development - of EG actors on Good Governance, social accountability in Climate Change.

• Networking - by building Regional and National Coalitions on Environmental Governance

• Policy Dialogue Platforms

• Knowledge Management through a Resource Centre for Environmental Governance.

Team Members

For more information on EnGG's work, please write to greengovernance@pacindia.org

Public Policy Research Group

The objectives of PPRG are as follows:

1. Conduct academic and/or professional research on important sectoral and inter-sectoral issues of policy relevance.
2. To strengthen policymaking and implementation through systematic research.
3. Provide knowledge of the larger setting in which improvements in public service delivery and urban infrastructure take place.
4. Enable the building of a comprehensive socio-economic database of cities in the country, so that PAC can become the clearinghouse of such information.
5. Influence policymakers, civil society and other stakeholders with such research through dissemination of findings.
6. Collaborate with other institutions in the above-mentioned endeavor.

The focus of the group initially will be on urban issues, but will later diversify into other areas.

Team Members

For more information on PPRG's work please contact Kala Sridhar at kala@pacindia.org