Civil society

The bottom-up approach

Work with local people

Involving citizens into the decision making processes rather than implementing the decisions without their active participation strengthens the legitimacy of the decisions made and increases chances for their fruitful implementation.

Rising from the development community as a professional practice is to work and learn together with the local people rather than for the local people, or, in other words, on their behalf. The highest value of this kind of work with the public for the public management officers is in the bottom-up approach that enables to achieve and maintain the feeling of the public ownership towards the public properties. Moreover, the approach leads to better quality and more convenient public services.

Questions to reflect on

• Have you ever experienced a decision which was made on the local level that was motivated by the pursuit of a local initiative?
• Can you imagine an issue that you would get involved into in order to change an existing law or push for an implementation of new measures?