Demonstrating the power of mobile technology in enhancing public service delivery (Page 1)

A case study of the Dokoza project in South Africa

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BACKGROUND

Improving the delivery of services to the majority of South Africans is a key challenge faced by the postapartheid government. Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) can enhance the public service’s ability to address service delivery backlogs, while providing citizens with more creative options for accessing services.

Mobile technologies could be instrumental in addressing the slow response rates of government to citizen requests, poor access to services (particularly in under-serviced rural areas) and citizens’ limited ability to provide feedback to government. In addition, mobile technologies can improve the back-office operations of government. At the level of both network utilisation and application development, there are major opportunities to harness the power of technology for greater efficiency and effectiveness in government. In 2003, the Centre for Public Service Innovation (CPSI) partnered with the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to conduct research identifying opportunities for mobile and wireless technologies to be used in government.

The researchers developed a strong case for the possibilities offered by this technology for the public sector. There are several areas of potential application of mobile technologies as follows:

• In a contemporary knowledge economy, public officials need cost-effective and efficient access to information from a range of sources, including websites, email, intranets, document and knowledge management systems, and portals. Many government workers are also mobile and need access to information through wireless and remote technologies.

• Personal communications tools, such as mobile phones, text messages and email, can be used to improve the functioning of government departments and agencies.

• Any information generated through mobile or wireless methods needs to be useful – this quality depends on how well these applications have been integrated into back-end systems and how user-friendly they are. The better the applications can be used to access, input and manipulate data, the greater will be their efficiency, and hence the benefits they are likely to provide. This includes accessing information from back-end databases, inputting information into systems, either as part of a workflow process or simply data capture, and extracting data for wider distribution.

• In the corporate world, supply chains are being transformed by the use of mobile and wireless technologies, from manufacturing to retail. These efficiencies can be harnessed for government too and, if combined with an active information management strategy, can transform the logistics of managing public resources.

• Positioning technology, such as GPS chips in cell phones, can potentially support public works in identifying maintenance problems, or could be used for criminal incident reporting, or could help emergency services reach accident victims through caller identification.

• With improved interfaces and applications, cell phones could be used for transactions, including municipal bill payments and purchasing of services. The most successful commercial application – topping up prepaid airtime from a mobile phone– suggests possibilities of extending the model to top up prepaid electricity.

About the Centre for Public Service Innovation

The Centre for Public Service Innovation (CPSI) is a South African non-profit body established by the Minister for Public Service and Administration to identify, nurture and support innovation in public services. Launched in June 2002, the CPSI has a mandate to actively identify and develop new ideas that assist in improving service delivery and the overall functioning of the public sector. The CPSI runs a programme entitled FutureWatch11, which proactively identifies emerging issues and approaches that have potential value to the public sector, but which remain unexplored. The CPSI implements practical demonstrator projects to ensure that the theories and approaches discussed are tested in practice.

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