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Public Sector and Civil Society

We asked respondents who said that they are government employees[1] additional questions to help investigate perceptions regarding government utilization of social media for service delivery and citizens engagement.
When asked about how the impact of social media could be measured, 56% of government employees among our respondents thought that “citizen satisfaction” was a good indicator of impact and 37% thought that “government ranking in international developmental benchmarks was an appropriate indicator. Meanwhile, 25% thought that impact could be evaluated by measuring traditional “returns on investment” within the government (Figure 13).

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Figure 13: Measuring the impact of social media on government services and citizen engagement
“How can the impact of social media on government services and citizen engagement be measured in your view?”
 
Empowering Civil Society? Social Media and Service Delivery beyond the Public Sector
Civil society and other providers of public services are also using social media to engage with citizens on service delivery globally. In the Arab world, the increased penetration of social media, coupled with the low levels of quality and accessibility of public service provision in the region prompted many civil society organizations to fill these gaps and utilize social media tools in innovative ways for service delivery. Across the Arab region, an unexpected 42% of respondents indicated that non-governmental organizations in their country were using social media to deliver services that government was not providing (Figure 14); a finding that may indicate social media is providing a growing space for the ‘3rd sector’ to maneuver in many Arab countries. Breaking down this finding, predictably, a larger percentage of respondents (49%) from lower-middle income Arab countries said this was true in their country of residence than from upper middle or high income countries (Figure 15). Overall, 73% of respondents indicated that they believed the increased utilization of social media was aiding in the development of civil society structures in their country of residence (Figure 16).
Many respondents said that civil society entities such as charities and volunteer networks were benefiting from social media in both communicating with each other and other volunteers, raising awareness about their work and causes, as well as communicating with their networks in real time.
 
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Figure 14: Use of social media by non-government entities to deliver public services

“In the past few years, have non-government entities used social media to deliver public services that your government can no longer provide?”
 
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Figure 15 Use of social media by non-government entities to deliver public services (Breakdown by Country Income)
“In the past few years, have non-government entities used social media to deliver public services that your government can no longer provide?”
 
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Figure 16: Impact of social media usage on the development of “civil society”

“Do you believe that citizen use of social media contributes to the development of “civil society” in your country of residence?”


[1] A sample of N = 708 across 5 Arab countries mainly.

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