Citizens Charter - International scene
The adoption of Citizen’s Charter in UK saw the adoption of similar such programs by several other countries , including India in 1997. While it varied from country to country but every country that adopted a Citizen’s Charter initiative ensured that to produce citizen-centric public services that focused on improving quality of services, standards conformity, and the grievance redressal machinery. In other words stake holders were made to know the mandate of the concerned Ministry/ Department/ Organisation, how one can get in touch with its officials, what to expect by way of services and how to seek a remedy if something goes wrong. Some of the countries which followed the bandwagon of Citizens charter are Australia (Service Charter, 1997), Belgium (Public Service Users' Charter 1992), Canada (Service Standards Initiative, 1995), France (Service Charter, 1992), India (Citizens' Charter, 1997), Jamaica (Citizens' Charter 1994), Malaysia (Client Charter,1993), Portugal (The Quality Charter in Public Services, 1993), and Spain(The Quality Observatory, 1992) (OECD, 1996).
The idea of a Citizen’s Charter has been or being replicated all over the world. In the United States, the Clinton administration’s 1993 executive order requiring agencies dealing with the public to formulate customer service standards is said to be from the British Citizen’s Charter. The Australian innovation saw the development of Service Charters for policy functions. The inclusion of policy activities in the Service Charters opens another window to raise transparency in government policy formulation and execution. The Citizen’s Charter has also been promoted in African states. A rights obligations approach is being adapted in the case of African Public Service Charters.
The large gaining popularity of Citizen’s Charter across the world will also make it a tool towards achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of United Nations declaration of September 2000 which affirm commitments towards addressing poverty and all forms
of inhumanity. Countries throughout the globe have collectively pledged a commitment to the Millennium Declaration, commonly known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as a strategy to break the chain of poverty and eliminate the worst forms of human impoverishment by 2015.
Source : GOI website and from internet websites
