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This guide will assist subnational governments,1 referred to throughout as “local authorities,” in planning and implementing a feedback loop with the ultimate aim of institutionalizing the process as a regular part of policymaking and implementation. Completing the first loop allows local authorities to identify effective strategies and adapt for future iterations. By entrenching a tailored approach to two-way dialogue into the regular policy process, feedback loops can help local authorities to better fulfill their mandates and build relationships between elected and unelected officials and residents between election cycles. 

By centering local authority representatives as the drivers and leaders of the process, this guide contributes to the already-extensive global discussion of feedback loops, which currently centers primarily on civil society-driven approaches. Such civil society-centered feedback loops are studied, designed and implemented by organizations such as Feedback Labs, Accountability Labs and People Powered.2 This guide, in comparison, learns from these endeavors to offer detailed guidance on how reformers and pro-accountability actors within government can proactively (ideally in partnership with civil society) implement, learn from and institutionalize the process. 

Therefore, this guide will be of greatest relevance to a local authority and community that wants to “do politics differently,” engaging residents more inclusively; it is designed for those with a small administrative team, limited technological and technical capacities, and generally limited resources, such as staff, money and time. 

The process proposed in this guide must be led by local authority officials (meaning elected representatives, appointed officials and bureaucrats, and administrative staff) and their respective agencies, bodies or institutions. However, this guide may also be useful to civil society groups, activists and residents interested in collaborating with local authorities to solve problems through feedback loops, including by enhancing two-way communication and community-driven policymaking in their communities. 

Box 1. Feedback loops and pro-accountability actors in both state and society

The Accountability Research Center, an exploratory research group of civil society thinkers, practitioners, activists, policy reformers and academics focused on strategies for improving public accountability, studies how government reformers can encourage citizen action from below through “sandwich strategies.” These strategies involve “state-society synergy,” where initiatives and actions from the government and nongovernmental sectors interact to create change with the potential to “drive virtuous circles of mutual empowerment between pro-accountability actors in both state and society.”3

This has direct implications for feedback loops. This guide positions local authorities as leaders of the feedback loop process, but local authorities should recognize how their efforts to engage the public in decision-making will interact with citizen action. Collective action by citizens and civil society can take many forms and serve various goals, mutually reinforcing local authorities’ efforts to address common challenges. The feedback loop process creates invited spaces for citizen voice, such as opportunities to provide input on local decisions and priorities. 

NDI’s experience shows that creating these invited spaces benefits local authorities, but it is not always smooth and comfortable. Local authorities should understand that meaningful citizen participation in decision-making will involve sharing their power. Citizens may enter these invited spaces with demands, pressure and grievances, and local authorities should be prepared to listen and engage in meaningful dialogue about how to address these needs.

Note: This process differs from feedback loop processes in which civil society takes the lead. Nongovernmental actors will face added steps of securing government buy-in to undertake feedback loops (see Step 1); they should also play a role in monitoring the process (see NDI’s Political Process Monitoring guide for advice on this approach).4 For example, in the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, Accountability Labs and Local Interventions Group created Citizen Helpdesks (with donor funding) and enlisted volunteers to listen for information from citizens in remote areas about the conditions and what supplies and resources were needed. They relayed this information back to the government and established systems and methods for government information to reach communities. The government was then able to get resources to remote areas that were affected by the earthquake, and citizens were more informed about government actions and assistance. In this instance, civil society and international funding were fundamental to the initiation, design and implementation of the feedback loop, even though the government was involved as a collaborator. Would this feedback loop exist without civil society pressure? Perhaps not, as civil society “found very little effort to provide information to citizens and a high level of dissatisfaction with government” in a “control community” where Helpdesk activities did not occur.5

This is not to criticize civil society-led projects or to suggest that local authorities should not engage with them (indeed, the previous example resulted in benefits for local communities and government). This is only to point out a difference with the feedback loop efforts owned and led by local authorities put forward in this guide. Civil society can support or partner with local authorities in implementing the feedback loop, especially when resources are limited. In these instances, collaborative strategies aligning government reformers and collective action prove effective. Civil society engagement can play an important role in ensuring that outreach is inclusive and in holding the government accountable through regular updates to the public and “closing the feedback loop.” Thus, while government stakeholders are necessary for the feedback loop process, civil society and community members also have an important role to play. The guide identifies key moments when civil society and broader public engagement can help the local authority to improve the feedback loop process and promote more democratic outcomes by ensuring it is inclusive, accountable, participatory and transparent. 

Footnotes

1 Subnational governments are varied and diverse in geographic size, population, legal personality, governing powers, etc. We are using ‘local authorities’ as a catch-all term. We are referring to these bodies in the broadest sense - they include local governments like cities, towns, villages, and neighborhood commissions and leaders, but also entities such as states, provinces, and territories that are larger and interact with various levels of government.

2 See: Feedback Labs at https://feedbacklabs.org/ ; and the Accountability Lab at https://accountabilitylab.org/.

3 Sandwich Strategy Research: State-Society Synergy (Accountability Research Center, n.d.), Link.

4 Political Process Monitoring (National Democratic Institute, n.d.), Link.

5 See: Feedback Labs at https://feedbacklabs.org/ ; and the Accountability Lab at https://accountabilitylab.org/.

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