The latest ICT and social media innovations in the world have made the Public Relations (PR) technologies as one of the most important two-way communication opportunities not only for private companies but also for government organizations and public institutions. Today PR tools and methods may help increase public trust in government authorities, inform citizens on local and national development strategies and encourage people to participate in decision making and express their opinions regarding a wide range of matters having impact on individual, public and national interests.

The continuous and step-by-step approach to create enabling environment for accountable, transparent, accessible, and resilient local government agencies has always been in the public administration reform agenda of Uzbekistan. It is well seen in the Concept of further deepening democratic reforms and forming civil society declared by the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan during the joint meeting of the Legislative Chamber and the Senate of Oliy Majlis (Parliament) of the Republic of Uzbekistan on 12th November 2010.

Despite the existing national legislation and ratified international instruments on freedom of information, freedom of expression and speech, access to information and freedom of media, there many efforts have primarily been made at the central level of government agencies to arrange the permanent institutional mechanism in the form of Information Centres (Press-Offices) or official Spokespersons to ease the access of citizens to information concerning their rights, duties and legitimate interests as well as information of public interest. While the majority part of local government bodies at the regional, city and district levels, namely khokimiyats are still in need of better applying modern citizen-centric communication tools and technologies and committing public outreach events to provide people with accurate and up-to-date information on their performance and ongoing issues aimed at development of social and economic situation in the region.

UNDP has made a steady commitment globally to assist national governments on 230 e-governance and access to information initiatives in 84 countries and allocated a total investment of USD 241,6 million in 2010 for projects with focus on modernization of public institutions, use of ICTs to enhance citizen access to public information, promote participation, and deliver public services more effectively along with assisting policy and regulatory efforts, and advancing citizen access and connectivity.

Bringing together the UNDP expertise on access to information in the developing countries and results of the field surveys on capacity assessment of 27 khokimiyats and access of local community members to information conducted last year in Djizak and Namangan regions, the LGSP has been promoting the continuous education and learning strategy of civil servants which particularly would encompass both the strengthening of organizational mechanism and advancing the individual capacities of officials to raise the transparency of local government performance for citizens. This part of the strategy is about a practical support to implement the Government policy on free access to public information. In a long-term and broader strategic context, it is highly likely that client-oriented and citizen-centric Public Relations will become an essential function of civil service system in local governance as well as integral part of academic disciplines, regular training programmes and learning modules to be taught for middle and junior level civil servants.

The interactive workshops involved a number of middle and junior level employees who were responsible for interacting with citizens from different units and offices of regional, city and district khokimiyats in two pilot regions. The workshop sessions covered such topics as public image of government agency, access to public information, the best foreign practice and UNDP expertise, preparing accurate and reliable information using participatory research methods like brainstorming, SWOT, and Delphi analysis, insight into business communications, means of information sharing (e.g. press-releases, success stories, news, information on official website and etc.), performing interviews with media representatives and delivering public speech.

Also the participants practiced the newly acquired knowledge and skills through individual and group exercises, presentations and role games with a great attention to provision of information to the public in different ways. The immediate feedback from workshop participants and follow-up suggestions of their supervisors will be taken into account to shape the workshop design and content to make it more tailored to the emerging needs of local governance and demands of citizens for information.

These learning events are the individual capacity development initiatives of LGSP being implemented in a series of professional trainings for local government officials which include subject matters on application of Information and communication technologies (ICT) in public administration, public relations for communication with citizens, performance management, strategic planning, organizational development, human resources management and the like.