Civic and Citizen Engagement

Citizens play a critical role in advocating for transparency, holding public institutions accountable, and contributing to their effectiveness. They are also a source of innovative solutions to complex development challenges. Evidence shows that, under the right conditions, meaningful civic and citizen engagement (CCE) can strengthen governance, empower citizens, improve citizen-state relations, enhance public service delivery, and ultimately, contribute to more effective development and greater well-being.

Global research and practice have increasingly emphasized the need to make citizen engagement and social accountability practices more strategic and effective. The growing complexity of policymaking and the failure to adequately address pressing global  challenges—such as climate change, health emergencies, inequality, conflict, and violence—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. This shift reflects a greater focus on overcoming barriers to effective engagement and understanding what approaches work, under which conditions, and why.

CCE can be transformative in critical investment areas. For example, in the renewable energy transition, active citizen participation can accelerate the adoption of sustainable practices and local solutions, foster community support, and secure 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 willingness and capacity of both governments and citizens to engage. Social, political, economic, environmental, cultural, geographic, and gender dynamics all influence the opportunities for and scope of effective citizen engagement. Understanding these contextual factors and fostering enabling conditions are essential for achieving results, particularly in today’s global environment of shrinking civic space. 

Last Updated: Oct 03, 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 Evolution Roadmap 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.

The World Bank is operationalizing this commitment through its new civic and citizen engagement results indicator, as reflected in the draft IDA21 Replenishment Report (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 World Bank to renew its approach to civic and citizen engagement (see the IDA Forums’ Executive Summary, page 6). The new composite indicator, “Quality of Civic/Citizen Engagement,” will be included in the Organizational Effectiveness and Efficiency Dashboard, which is a component of the renewed Corporate Scorecard, to measure the World Bank's performance in CCE over time. Unlike the previous citizen engagement indicator that operated only at the project level, the new CCE indicator will bridge both the project and country levels, identifying good practices, and highlighting areas where more attention is needed. 

According to A Strategic Review of Good Practices and Lessons Learned for Renewal of World Bank Support for Citizen Engagement and Social Accountability 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; and 

4. Enhance partnership and support for civil society.

To achieve these strategic objectives, an institutional support system for CCE that is fit-for-purpose (staff and resources) is needed. 

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.

In April 2025, the World Bank also launched CIVIC: The Civil Society and Social Innovation Alliance. 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.  

Last Updated: Oct 29, 2025

The World Bank monitors and reports on the status of 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 (IPFs) 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 rigorous impact evaluations, including randomized control trial (RCT) methodology, the World 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 collaborates with the government to improve education quality in remote villages through the KIAT Guru Project, empowering communities to hold teachers accountable by expanding access to information on educational outcomes. After one year, learning outcomes rose from 37% to 49% in math, and from 37% to 50% in language.

• In Cambodia, the Implementation of the Social Accountability Framework (ISAF) program—a government–CSO partnership to strengthen accountability and service delivery in 757 commune councils, 1,404 primary schools, and 605 health centers— significantly increased service provider transparency by expanding the accessibility of information on services provided, budget, and performance. The program also led to greater use of health centers and shorter wait times for services.

• Meanwhile, in Ethiopia, an  impact evaluation 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 “Citizens at the Center: A Strategic Review of Good Practices and Lessons Learned for Renewal of World Bank Support for Citizen Engagement and Social Accountability”.

Last Updated: Oct 03, 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.

CIVIC, the World Bank's New Vehicle for Civil Society Engagement

The World Bank recently launched CIVIC: The Civil Society and Social Innovation Alliance, a new dedicated financing and support facility for civil society organizations (CSOs), social innovators, and other social economy actors. 

Through this flagship Global Program and Multi-donor Trust Fund (MDTF), CIVIC harnesses innovative approaches and community-driven solutions to address some of the world’s most pressing development challenges, advancing the World Bank Group´s mission to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity on a livable planet. 

CIVIC builds on the experience of the World Bank Group’s previous civil society facility, the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA), which mobilized over $60 million to civil society worldwide. Launched under the GPSA and serving as CIVIC’s proof-of-concept model, the Green Accountability Platform 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. The Platform 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. 

Rather than just funding CSOs individually, CIVIC brings resources together for exponential impact—transforming the World Bank’s approach by fostering sustainable capacity building and connecting CSOs to national programs and policy frameworks at scale. By joining CIVIC, partners have a seat at the governing board of the MDTF, the Partnerships Council, to strategically steer policies and funding.

The CIVIC and Citizen Engagement teams within the Global Department for Social Development actively collaborate 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.

Last Updated: Oct 03, 2025

GFF x CIVIC Health Platform 

CIVIC and the World Bank-hosted Global Financing Facility (GFF) are partnering to accelerate progress on maternal, child, and adolescent health by providing financing to scale people-driven innovations and embed civil society and youth leadership into public health systems. This collaboration leverages the World Bank Group’s convening power and operational reach alongside the frontline knowledge, trust, and agility of CSOs and youth-led organizations—especially in delivering last-mile services and ensuring accountability. 

The World Bank’s Global Financing Facility is contributing $18 million to CIVIC to implement a joint strategy that elevates the role of civil society and youth in advancing primary health care and nutrition outcomes. This investment will provide grant financing and technical assistance to CSOs and youth-led organizations in GFF partner countries, with a focus on strengthening civil society coalitions, amplifying advocacy and accountability, and scaling innovative, people-driven solutions that expand access to essential health services for women, children, and adolescents.  

Learn more about the Health Platform here.

CIVIC Digital: Advancing Inclusive Digital Citizen Engagement 

CIVIC Digital transforms civic engagement in marginalized communities by leveraging AI and open-source technologies to bridge the digital divide. Hosted by the World Bank, this initiative empowers governments and civil society organizations to co-create accessible digital solutions that amplify citizen voices and strengthen government responsiveness. Through innovative tools like voice-enabled consultation and feedback management systems, CIVIC Digital makes civic participation accessible to citizens regardless of literacy levels or technical skills. By fostering a global ecosystem of digital public goods and convening changemakers through initiatives like the CIVICAI Collective and Green AI x Green CIVIC Tech Accelerator, the platform enables scalable, sustainable solutions for participatory governance in low-capacity settings.

CIVIC Digital builds capacity through a comprehensive digital tools catalog for World Bank staff and partners, monthly webinars on AI-driven engagement, and hands-on prototype development. Working alongside partners including NetHope, Agami, and Climate Collective, recent initiatives include the OpenNyAI Maker Residency that convened 60+ changemakers in New Delhi to redesign India's grievance system, and the Green AI x Green CIVIC Tech Accelerator, which equips climate-focused organizations with responsible AI literacy to strengthen citizen participation in environmental governance.

Last Updated: Oct 03, 2025