How Citizen Partnerships co-produce projects with Yamato City in Japan

Objectives

In 2000, Japan embarked on a two-fold decentralisation process which involved a transfer of responsibilities from central to local government and increased levels of autonomy for local government. In the view of many local government stakeholders this meant ‘more work but not bigger budgets’ but also the duty to be accountable to local people and explain what local government does for local communities.

In this context, Yamato City, which is a medium-sized city in the center of the Kanagawa Prefecture, was granted the special status of a decentralised city, which meant increased autonomy compared to local authorities without this special status. For the mayor of Yamato City at the time, Mr. Kimiyasu TSUCHIYA, increased local autonomy meant that there was both a need and opportunity to strengthen public participation and service co-production.