DIGITAL GOVERNANCE AND CITIZEN TRUST: EVALUATING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF RIGHT TO INFORMATION (RTI) LAWS IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

Pakistan’s second-generation Right to Information (RTI) laws operational at the federal level since 2017 and across all provinces promise to deepen transparency and rebuild citizen trust through legally enforceable access to information rights. Using 2021-23 administrative data from four provincial information commissions, two independent transparency audits, and three nationwide citizen-trust surveys, this paper asks: To what extent has digital case-management and proactive disclosure under Pakistan’s RTI regime translated into measurable gains in citizen trust? We find that while e-governance innovations (online portals, SMS tracking, geo-tagged proactive disclosure dashboards) have cut average response times by 34 % and lifted user satisfaction with the information-request process to 63 %, only 24 % of Pakistani adults are aware that RTI laws exist and just 6 % have ever filed a request. Provincial implementation remains uneven: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) resolves 87 % of complaints within statutory time limits, whereas Sindh and Balochistan still lack functional commissions. Econometric analysis of UNDP’s 19 500-resident “PAPI” panel shows that knowledge of RTI procedures correlates with a 0.18-standard-deviation increase in trust in local government (p < 0.01), but the effect is conditional on prior internet access and female mobility. The study concludes that digital RTI infrastructure is a necessary but insufficient condition for trust-building; without parallel investments in civic literacy, bureaucratic capacity and commission independence, transparency reforms risk reinforcing rather than reducing existing inequalities in citizen–state relations.