GovernanceOperations & Systems

Civic Innovation Foundation: Digitising Public Consultation for Democratic Governance

Strengthening Participatory Law-Making through AI-Enabled Public Consultation

1,250+
1,250+
public consultations conducted
32%–76%
32%–76%
of citizen feedback accepted in draft laws and policies
3,000+
3,000+
hours of multilingual voice feedback analysed
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Case at a Glance

About the Organisation

Civic Innovation Foundation (CIVIS) is a nonprofit organisation that enables structured, inclusive dialogue between governments and citizens on draft laws and policies. Through its technology-driven consultation platform, Civis supports governments to design, manage, and analyse public consultations at scale, ensuring citizen voices meaningfully inform democratic decision-making.

Problem Statement

Despite public consultation being central to democratic governance, existing mechanisms relied on fragmented and manual processes such as emails and written submissions. Governments struggled to manage large volumes of unstructured feedback, ensure inclusive participation, and translate citizen inputs into actionable policy insights, limiting the effectiveness and credibility of consultations.

Solution

Civis developed an AI-enabled, end-to-end public consultation platform that supports governments across the consultation lifecycle. The platform enables structured citizen engagement, multi-channel and multilingual feedback collection, and advanced analysis of qualitative inputs, helping governments efficiently synthesise public feedback and translate it into clear, actionable policy insights.

Read the full case study
Challenge
Fragmented consultation processes, unstructured feedback, and limited analytical capacity constrained meaningful citizen participation

Public consultation is a foundational pillar of democratic governance, yet the mechanisms used to engage citizens on draft laws and policies remained fragmented and difficult to scale. Governments often relied on emails, written submissions, and manual processes to gather public input, creating several systemic challenges:

Inconsistent Structure of Feedback
Citizen responses were received in free-text formats with no standardisation, making it difficult to categorise inputs or compare feedback across clauses, themes, or stakeholder groups. The absence of structured frameworks limited the ability of policymakers to extract actionable insights from large volumes of qualitative data.
Limited Accessibility and Inclusion
Existing consultation methods favoured citizens who were comfortable with written submissions and formal policy language. Individuals who preferred voice-based inputs, spoke regional languages, or had limited digital access were often excluded from the process.
High Administrative and Time Burden
Manual moderation, synthesis, and reporting of feedback required significant government resources. As consultations scaled, the effort required to analyse submissions increased exponentially, slowing decision-making and reducing responsiveness.
Weak Feedback Loops and Trust Deficits
Even when consultations were conducted, governments struggled to demonstrate how public inputs influenced final policy outcomes. This lack of transparency risked reducing consultations to a procedural requirement rather than a meaningful democratic exercise.
Challenges in Public Consultation Process

Together, these challenges limited the effectiveness of public consultations and weakened the link between citizen voices and policy decisions. Civis recognised the need for a solution that not only digitised consultations but fundamentally improved how governments listen, analyse, and respond to public input.

Solution
An AI-powered consultation manager enabling governments to listen, understand, and act at scale

To address these systemic challenges, Civis built an AI-enabled Consultation Manager that supports the full lifecycle of public consultations. The platform integrates multiple AI components to process complex qualitative inputs while preserving the nuance of citizen voices.

At the core of the solution is an AI-based Policy Draft Analyser that uses Named Entity Recognition (NER) and clause-mapping engines to break down draft laws into understandable components. This allows citizens to engage with specific clauses rather than opaque legal documents.

The Response Analyser leverages a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline with reranking to synthesise large volumes of feedback across text and voice formats. Multilingual and multi-channel inputs including WhatsApp voice notes are transcribed using Whisper v3 and analysed using open-source large language models such as Llama 3.1 (distilled for reasoning and summarisation).

Moderation and control tools ensure safe, relevant, and policy-focused engagement, while dashboards and reports provide governments with structured insights, trends, and summaries of public sentiment.

Civis’ solution is modular, open-source, and designed for scalability, enabling deployment across varied policy contexts while remaining cost-efficient and adaptable to government needs.

AI-powered Consultation Manager
Outcomes & Impact
Greater inclusion, stronger policies, and demonstrable influence of citizen voices.

Civis’ technology-enabled approach has strengthened both the reach and effectiveness of public consultations, translating citizen participation into measurable policy outcomes.

Expanded Participation
Over 8,24,306 citizens engaged across 1,250+ consultations spanning 777+ cities and towns, enabling truly pan-India representation
Improved Policy Outcomes
Between 32% and 76% of citizen feedback collected through Civis has been incorporated into draft laws and policies.
Voice-Based Inclusion
More than 3,000 hours of multilingual voice feedback analysed, lowering barriers for citizens who prefer speaking over writing.
Government Adoption
Supported 40+ government partners in designing and managing consultations more efficiently and transparently

One notable example occurred in 2024, when proposed amendments to the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Rules were paused after Civis-facilitated feedback highlighted risks of rural exclusion, stigma, and implementation challenges. Citizen inputs directly reshaped the legislative process

Technology Stack

Tools/ Techniques Used For What It Enabled Category
Draft Analyser with NER (Named Entity Recognition) Government consultations Clause-level understanding, structured citizen engagement Open Source
RAG Pipeline + Reranker Citizen feedback analysis Thematic synthesis, prioritisation of insights Open Source
Whisper v3 Voice-based consultations and speech-to-text analysis Multilingual transcription and accessibility Open Source
Llama 3.1 Distilled Model Reasoning and summarisation Efficient, scalable analysis of qualitative data Open Source

Key Project Learnings

Civis’ experience demonstrates how AI, when thoughtfully deployed, can strengthen democratic processes:

01
Human-Centred AI Design

Voice-first, multilingual engagement ensured inclusion without compromising analytical rigour.

02
Scalability with Trust

Open-source models and transparent workflows-built credibility with government partners.

03
From Participation to Influence

Structured analysis and clear reporting closed the loop between citizen input and policy decisions.

Potential for Wider Adoption

Sector Adaptability of the Solution
Government Systems Applicable across common law countries seeking scalable, transparent public consultation mechanisms.
Civil Society Organisations CSOs can use modular components to engage stakeholders on policy, regulation, and reform initiatives.
Collaborative Projects Multilateral and global programs suitable for large-scale, cross-country consultations requiring multilingual and qualitative analysis.

See it in Action

Solution Video
User Testimonial
This video introduces CIS, an end-to-end consultation platform that enables governments and organizations to design, manage, and analyze public policy consultations at scale. It demonstrates how citizens can provide multilingual feedback through structured interfaces and public discussions, and how responses are transformed into interactive dashboards for data-driven policymaking. The video also highlights AI-powered features such as voice processing, sentiment analysis, and a policy analyzer that evaluates draft policies, identifies gaps, and generates actionable reports while ensuring data privacy on government servers.
Solution Video
User Testimonial
This video features a stakeholder acknowledging the role of Civis in supporting policy consultations by enabling broader and more nuanced public engagement. It highlights how Civis helps reach diverse participants, gather specialist feedback, and strengthen the overall quality of consultation processes.

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