Working in decentralised service systems: challenges and choices for the Australian aid program

The report examined Australia’s support for service systems in decentralised contexts - the evaluation focussed on the health, education and infrastructure (water, sanitation and roads) sectors. Foreword Public services have been decentralised in most countries where Australia provides aid. This means Australia, like other donors, must be willing and able to engage effectively with developing country governments at all levels to improve service delivery. To ensure sustainable improvements, this engagement should carefully coordinate support for governance reforms with assistance to strengthen or expand service delivery systems. As the World Bank has observed, done well, decentralisation can result in more efficient and effective services for communities. However, done poorly, or where the context is inappropriate, decentralisation may have negative effects. This evaluation builds on the Office of Development Effectiveness’s 2009 evaluation of Australian aid for service delivery. It answers important questions about whether Australian aid has appropriately considered the role of subnational authorities, including specific issues identified in 2009. It assesses how well Australian aid has addressed the challenges of decentralisation, with a focus on the major sectors of education, health and infrastructure. This evaluation utilised a clear methodology, applied it consistently, and draws together a range of evidence to provide a balanced account of Australian aid performance. It concludes that Australian aid is beginning to respond to the challenges of supporting service delivery in decentralised contexts, but notes that results are mixed and there is room for further improvement. The evaluation suggests Australia needs to improve its country-level analysis, program planning and design to better address decentralisation. In particular, there is a need to carefully assess short-term service delivery needs against long-term structures and incentives for governments to achieve sustainable service delivery and meet sovereign responsibilities. Australia needs to get the right balance of engagement with different levels of government, and appropriately address both supply and demand aspects of service delivery, especially to improve equity.   &nbsp

Geospatial and e-Governance readiness assessment : a case study from India and South Africa

E-governance and Geospatial technology adoption in the context of service delivery of municipalities is meant to have transparent, efficient and responsive government. In this globalised world, the technology adoption and its application is emerging at a very rapid pace. However, world over municipalities are facing enormous challenges to have effective municipal service delivery with changing scale of cities and changing socio economic background state of its citizens. The prime objective to implement E-governance and Geospatial Technology is usually cost cutting and also minimizing the complexities of procedure by possible business process reengineering. Municipalities are entrusted to provide efficient service delivery to its citizens and subsequent technology adoption however they still have issues like digital divide, affordability etc. The municipalities are keeping abreast of latest technologies and implementing them to enable greater facilitation of its services and at the same time increasing the accessibility of its services to the citizens. The concomitant advantage could be empowering people through so called “disintermediation” or eliminating middleman between government and its citizen. Just to mention a small example, implementing online property tax assessment and collection system could eliminate element of corruption in form of “middleman” and also improve on service delivery or consumer convenience especially in developing countries. The paper discusses and evaluates the dimensions of e-Governance and Geospatial adoption at select municipalities in India and South Africa and their readiness level for further change. The scope of this Geospatial and e-Governance Adoption is kept within the context of GIS and web enabled services, which further leverage transparency, responsiveness and accountability. Based on this overview of Geospatial and e-Governance Adoption level study, the paper identifies the lessons learned from the qualitative analysis of the Geospatial and e-Governance adoption levels for strengthening the areas of planning, governance and service delivery services to the citizens

WUM model: emerging tool for evaluating institutional capacity of urban water utilities

Urban water utilities in the world’s developing regions are faced with challenges of scaling up services to cope with the rapid rate of urbanisation, and sustaining the service delivery. Increasingly, it is being recognised in development management that institutional capacity is a precursor for sustainable service delivery. This paper discusses the findings of a recent study funded by the World Bank, which, using case studies in Asia, examined the various conceptualisations of institutional sustainability, institutional capacity and capacity development, in the context of urban water services. Consistent with a process-based approach, and adapting concepts from organisational maturity models, the authors propose a new evaluation tool – the Water Utility Maturity (WUM) model. The outline WUM model was piloted with utilities in South Asia, and was found to be promising. The WUM model is flexible and considers different levels of institutional sustainability

An assessment of service delivery as a tool for redressing spatial inequality in South Africa’s rural municipalities: a case study of Impendle Municipality in uMgungundlovu District.

Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2018.This research argues that service delivery is worthy of being used as an indicatory tool for redressing spatial inequality in the context of rural municipalities in South Africa. Moreover, the research further lays a rationale which explicates that inasmuch as the post-apartheid movement has instituted various approaches of redressing the spatial imbalances experienced in South African rural areas, service provision as a tool of redressing these imbalances has proven to be an illusion. With this challenge in hand, the research establishes the extent to which service delivery is implemented in rural areas as a means of identifying the core challenges encountered by planners in the provision of spatial equity in rural municipalities. Three grounding theories – these being the Public Goods Theory; the Postmodern Urbanism Theory and the Dependency Theory – in addition to literature focused on bringing a better understanding to the notion of spatial inequality are utilised. The rationale behind these was to outline the responsible parties in service delivery and what the outcomes ought to be from an institutional perspective in the context of rural areas of South Africa. However, in the current reality which is evident in rural municipalities such as Impendle, spatial inequality continues to be perpetuated through migratory trends and a negative reliance on the government. In understanding the concept of spatial inequality, the experiences of spatial imbalances were presented in the context of the developed world and the developing world respectively. In highlighting the trends of spatial imbalances in these contexts from the literature presented, the research sought to unravel the origins of spatial inequality by introducing living trends spatially from the medieval context. Substantiating literature concerning spatial inequality in the South African context was outlined which understands the phenomenon to be predominantly rooted in Western traits, as is the case in other third world countries. Using the qualitative research methodology, the study further investigated styles of governance as influential factors in spatial inequality from three prominent ages, these being: the colonial era, the apartheid era and the democratic era successively, with prime focus on rural areas as marginalised neighbourhoods. In addition, the evolution of spatial inequality has been presented in the post-apartheid era, where national, provincial and municipal legislations and policies which shape the transformation of development have been reviewed and analysed as far as their implementation is concerned. Subsequently, the study has identified possible factors which explain the continued backlog in service delivery in such areas, amongst which are conflicts in governance and a lack of resources. Concluding recommendations were also outlined as a solution to these matters

User Perceived Service Quality of mHealth Services in Developing Countries

Health challenges present arguably the most significant barrier to sustainable global development. The introduction of ICT in healthcare, especially the application of mobile communications, has created the potential to transform healthcare delivery by making it more accessible, affordable and effective across the developing world. However, there is growing concerns about the quality of such services with regard to the robustness of the service delivery platform, knowledge and competence of the provider, privacy and security of information and above all, their effects on satisfaction, future use intentions and quality of life. The aim of this paper is to explore, analyze and critically assess the use of existing service quality theories in the light of evolving and ubiquitous healthcare services and their underlying technologies. The conceptual model of the study identifies that there are three primary quality dimensions (platform quality, interaction quality and outcome quality) and ten subdimensions (System reliability, system efficiency, system availability, system adaptability, system privacy, assurance, responsivness, empathy, functional benefits and emotinal benefits) which play a vital role in capturing users’ overall perceptions of mobile health services. Finally, the study identifies future research directions and highlights the managerial implications in the context of developing countries

Does climate information matter? A proposed monitoring and evaluation framework for participatory assessment of the impact of climate services for male and female farmers

This report summarizes a new contextual and gender-responsive monitoring and evaluation framework (M&E) to assess the added value of climate information and advisory services for smallholder farming communities across the developing world. The proposed M&E is based on three primary goals for conducting an evaluation of climate services for farmers: 1) to inform design of a new climate service project; 2) to identify gaps in climate service delivery, and improve project effectiveness and service delivery quality; and 3) to assess impact of provided services for farmers, hypothesized to benefit from the climate service. In order to meet these goals, we developed a multi-step process for climate service impact evaluation, including a pre-assessment (PA) toolkit of ethnographic and evaluative tools, followed by guidelines for baseline data collection, monitoring, and evaluation of climate service projects. The PA serves to build understanding of background contextual issues that constrain or enable the usefulness of climate information services in any given community, such as information about farmer’s decision- making, socio-economic and cultural constraints behind behavioral changes, and gender roles and norms within a given community. These elements may have impacts on information use and changes in practices, skills and abilities that aid farmers’ adaptation to a changing climate, and uptake of information to make decisions under uncertainty. Once such understanding of farmers’ decision-making context is determined, evaluators will be better equipped to define a contextualized impact pathway of climate information for rural farmers. The PA is the first step in a larger process of developing a targeted, locally-specific and gender-responsive M&E framework. This M&E framework will enable project teams to evaluate the relevance of climate services to support smallholder farmer decision-making under an uncertain climate and improve local management of climate related risks at the farm-level

Police service delivery challenges experienced by the South African police service station commanders in the Western Cape

South Africa is known for being a country with high crime rates. Many factors contribute to this notion. Cape Town is ranked 14th on the list of the most violent cities in the world. Furthermore, gang violence in the Western Cape is believed to be the highest in South Africa, with the South African Police Service (SAPS) considering 25 of the Western Cape's 151 police stations as gang related police stations. It is apparent that South Africa as a developing country falls short in addressing the social ills in our communities, such as continued high unemployment rates, gangsterism, and the formation of illegal partnerships due to money greed and boredom (lack of motivational support in the form of activities provided, especially among the youth). The objective of the study was to describe and analyse the police service delivery challenges experienced by Western Cape Station Commanders in the context of the crime statistics retrieved from published SAPS data. This research explored police service delivery challenges through the lens of Station Commanders from the 151 police stations in the Western Cape. Thus, the research question was formulated as follows: "What are the service delivery challenges experienced by Station Commanders at police stations in the Western Cape?" The target population comprised all Station Commanders in the Western Cape. For the data collection, a survey strategy was adopted. The data collection tool was a telephonic interview conducted in a systematic manner. The data of the profiling survey of all Station Commanders in the Western Cape Province conducted by the Department of Community Safety, were utilised to analyse the police service delivery challenges they face. The Know Your Station Commander Tool (KYSCT) is a survey tool developed with 'profiling questions' of the Station Commanders at every police station in the Western Cape. In general, limitations prohibiting police service delivery do exist from time to time, but when the lack of service delivery is experienced over long periods, it points to deep-rooted issues that need intervention, not merely observation. This study revealed that the top ten (10) service delivery challenges experienced by the Station Commanders in the Western Cape are: 1) Shortage of human resources; 2) Insufficient physical and aging resources; 3) Extended unproductive meetings; 4) SAPS 2 building and office infrastructure challenges; 5) Lack of involvement of all government departments; 6) Low morale of members; 7) Administrative-intense tasks to maintain a paper-trail; 8) Community police relations; 9) Population growth and development (police to population ratio unbalanced); and 10) Absenteeism

The state-private interface in public service provision

Political theory sets out a strong case for the state to play a major role in public service provision. Yet services are often provided by a range of state and non-state actors as well as by collaborative partnerships. This paper surveys the literature, seeking to map arrangements in developing countries and to understand the politics of different types of service provision

Development Through Empowerment: Delivering Effective Public Services - A Literature Review

This paper reviews the channels through which empowerment may improve the efficiency and quality of public service delivery, particularly in developing Asia. Departing from a macro perspective, we focus and revisit microeconomic evidence for three broad measures aimed at empowering the poor: empowerment through voice, empowerment through exit, and empowerment through information

Current state of e-services in Saudi Arabia: the case of intermediaries in facilitating government services in Madinah city

The government of Madinah has launched ‘Khdamatec’ electronic Offices (e-Offices) concept under their national electronic Government (e-Government) modernisation agenda to facilitate service delivery to citizens and seamless interaction to communicate their needs. By offering e-Offices around the government departments, Madinah government hopes to increase accessibility of e-Government services and make steps forward to electronic age, encourage Medina' citizens to participate and use e-Services and bridging digital divide. However, the empirical findings illustrate that the adoption and diffusion of the e-Office concept and e-Government in the wider context at a lethargic pace. This paper highlights some of the challenges faced by the Madinah city in implementing the e-Office concept and e-Government