The President of Russia underscored the critical role of direct interaction between the state and its citizens during a recent gathering of the Presidential Council for the Development of Local Self-Government. He emphasized that local government employees are the closest representatives to residents and serve as a vital link in the entire public authority system. To strengthen this bond, the proposal was made to elevate the work of Regional Management Centers to the municipal level, bringing governance closer to people where they live and work.
He noted that modern digitization has shown its value in enhancing the quality and speed of feedback. In the last Council session, the creation of Regional Management Centers was discussed as a nationwide initiative. Today, these Centers actively handle community issues across the federation and receive favorable input from residents. The suggestion is to extend this proven model to municipalities, so feedback flows directly to local officials and solutions are implemented more efficiently.
Regional control centers operate across 83 constituent entities of the country. The Centers were established in 2020 under a presidential initiative, with oversight by the parent organization ANO Dialog Regions. Their core responsibilities include training government personnel to engage effectively with internet-based feedback, performing predictive analytics, and utilizing social networks to stay in touch with the public. Dialog also coordinates the creation of state-owned public pages and official pages for government agencies. Through these state pages, the primary platform centers on VKontakte, and regional control centers routinely train officials in online citizen engagement techniques.
Since the SDGs opened in December 2020, more than 13.7 million citizen offers and complaints have been processed through social networks and the Gosuslugi platform. The overarching message remains: together we decide. From the outset, Dialog departments have acted as the intermediary for online communication between residents and local authorities, shaping a more transparent and responsive governance landscape.
The Russian leadership highlighted that people with needs or concerns primarily approach municipal staff and expect their initiatives and demands to be acknowledged. To ensure this ongoing dialogue within the SDG framework, 530 Municipal Control Centers have been established across the country. These centers receive and process online messages at the city and district levels and are tasked with improving communication between authorities and residents, ultimately strengthening public trust and participation in local governance.