Peace, justice, strong institutions and gender equality are important objectives of the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030. From this point, enhancing citizen engagement in public governance is crucial for building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions, as per SDG 16. Another important role of citizen engagement is to stimulate overarching partnerships between the government, private sector and civil society, as envisioned by the SDG 17.

Currently, Uzbekistan is undergoing deep transformation of its institutions, society, and economy. To date, more than 2 million people have applied to People’s Reception Offices created in 2016. Notably, Uzbekistan is paying particular attention to engaging the youth, which represent more than 60% of the population. The key challenge in this context is making sure that the policies of the government to engage citizens are comprehensive, effective and bring minimum costs both for the state and the society.

Public administration reform agenda in most developing countries often includes objectives such as ensuring social equality, improving public service delivery, building public trust in the state, enhancing government transparency and accountability. Citizen engagement serves as an efficient tool to address these challenges.

There are many successful cases of institutional reforms in the world, which were accomplished by the virtue of empowering the people in government decision-making. An important lesson from the global practice is that earning dividends from increased citizen engagement does not depend on the level of a country’s development and democracy.