This paper attempts to understand how contractors view the contribution of citizen engagement in monitoring the quality of construction works. The study wants to specifically understand the contractors’ perspectives on the usefulness of the citizen groups, the kind of obstacles they create, and ways to make citizen monitoring sustainable. Analyzing the contractors’ perspectives revealed insights from individuals directly involved in implementing citizen-group monitored public procurement projects. Knowing how citizen engagement benefits or creates challenges, generated collaborative recommendations that could prove helpful to all stakeholders. Such recommendations could allow effective citizen monitoring without hindering the efficiency or quality of works by the contractors. The study used qualitative data from primary and secondary sources. Primary data was collected in July 2020 using Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) of contractors with a semi-structured questionnaire using telephone-based interviews. Secondary data included insights of contractors from the DIMAPPP project divisional workshops from six different regions throughout 2019 and 2020. All contractors from the interviews found their citizen groups to be generally active and interested. They observed that the active citizen members mainly included men. Women who were part of the groups were generally less active than their male counterparts. Very few group members had any background or experience related to construction, engineering, or procurement. Similar observations were made in the divisional workshops as well.
Authors: Hoque, Rafsanul; Khan, Insiya
Type: Research Brief
Year: 2021
