Logged On: Smart Government Solutions from South Asia

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LOGGED ON

SMART GOVERNMENT SOLUTIONS FROM SOUTH ASIA

Zubair K. Bhatti, Jody Zall Kusek, and Tony Verheijen

© 2015 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank

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Attribution—Please cite the work as follows: Bhatti, Zubair K., Jody Zall Kusek, and Tony Verheijen. 2015. Logged On: Smart Government Solutions from South Asia. Washington, DC: World Bank. doi:10.1596/978-1-4648-0312-3. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0 IGO

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ISBN (paper): 978-1-4648-0312-3

ISBN (electronic): 978-1-4648-0313-0

DOI: 10.1596/978-1-4648-0312-3

Cover design: Deborah Naylor, Naylor Design, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

Contents

Boxes

Figures

Foreword

Great leaders have always made use of the technology of their time to communicate in new ways with the people they lead. In the last century, the advent of radio and then television dramatically increased the ability of leaders to communicate to people in their homes and communities. Millions of citizens and subjects could hear and then see their leaders for the first time.

The authors of Logged On: Smart Government Solutions from South Asia describe exciting examples of how the rapid expansion of a 21st-century innovation—mobile technology—is providing a new set of tools to the leaders of today to interact with people in new ways and potentially change how government can deliver services, receive feedback, and achieve results.

This book makes a valuable contribution by collecting many examples of innovators using these new technologies in new ways in South Asia and other regions. There are dozens of cases and good practices that will serve to inspire others and suggest approaches to solving problems and providing services in new and more efficient and cost-effective ways. For example, the book describes how these technologies are being used to support:

• Proactive calling of citizens to obtain feedback about government services in rural Pakistan

• Monitoring attendance of school teachers and health care workers

• Farmers, with real-time weather and market price alerts in China, India, Malaysia, and Uganda, and more efficient scheduling for crushing sugarcane in Bangladesh

• Early warning of floods in Bangladesh and typhoons in China

• Payment of taxes, booking appointments, registering a vehicle, and obtaining a birth certificate or an application for a government job

• Registration of voters and monitoring of elections

• An emergency messaging system for women and senior citizens to send the individual’s location to close relatives and to the police

• Citizen feedback on government performance and areas that need improvement

What makes mobile technology such an important tool to improve governance?

No other technology in history has spread as widely and as rapidly or penetrated as deeply across economic, social, gender, age, and other barriers. Because of the massive infrastructure investment required, fixed phone coverage in the developing world has grown at a snail’s pace. In contrast, over the space of a scant decade, the number of mobile subscriptions has grown from just over 2 billion worldwide in 2005 to nearly 7 billion mobile subscribers in 2014—with most of the growth occurring in the developing world (http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ICTFactsFigures2014-e.pdf).

In 2014, with mobile penetration reaching 96 percent worldwide and 90 percent in the developing world, it is nearing the point where there will be a mobile phone in the hands and pockets of almost every individual around the world—in every country, rich and poor, men and women. No other technology has approached the ubiquity of mobile phones or their ability to connect the people of this world.

Furthermore, a mobile phone is more than a phone. Even the most basic phones, generally known as feature phones, can do more than call another phone. Simple phones can receive and send voice and text messages, respond to both voice and text surveys, provide access to call centers, and receive broadcast messages (robocalls). And even basic phones are increasingly offering more features and functionality, including e-mail and Internet access.

More sophisticated mobile phones—smartphones—are designed to use the Internet, incorporate specialized applications or apps, and access mobile websites designed for use on mobile devices. These phones may cost more and reach fewer people but offer more and more exciting features and functionality. Their use is growing, as well, with almost a third of people in many developing countries using smartphones and 44 percent having access to the Internet.

Of course, mobile technology is inherently interactive. No other technology has allowed such direct and personal communication between and among individuals. Fundamentally, mobile phones can change the nature of communication. Unlike earlier tools that allowed leaders to broadcast information messages, mobile phones allow people to interact with their leaders and leaders to hear from their citizens and subjects. As this book argues, this two-way communication can dramatically shift the balance of power and open up many new possibilities for communicating messages from leaders and receiving information and feedback from people.

Now, one might conclude that if you run out and sling together an app, government will be transformed and social change will follow. Well, as much as we might wish that, of course, nothing is that simple. So let me close by describing some of the other characteristics illustrated by several of the cases presented here and others drawn from my own experience developing and using mobile tools for public health and safety in Africa, Asia, and Latin and North America.

Goals, Objectives, and Plans

Clearly, having a hammer does not result in a house. As with any tool, one must first decide what is going to be built, have a plan, and assemble the necessary elements. As an organization focuses on its goals and develops plans to achieve them, new technologies can offer new and often more cost-effective ways to achieve them.

Right Data, Right Scale

Ponderous amounts of data have been collected in the name of monitoring the performance of government programs. New technologies also offer exciting opportunities to obtain data.

Technology

In relating his experience in the Punjab, Zubair Bhatti emphasizes how he harnessed the power of call centers, text messages, and personal calls. Many different tools and technologies are encompassed by the broad term mobile. In my experience, while new functionality can present great possibilities, the most important tools can be those that have the greatest reach, not necessarily the greatest amount of functionality. And as the book describes, the most effective strategies usually integrate more than one tool—call centers and text messages or text messaging used by individuals to send and receive information that is stored in databases and accessible via web-based portals, dashboards, and other means. A case in point is the multiple digital tools put in place to monitor waste collection in Lahore, from tracking the trucks to capturing citizen complaints via a third-party call center.

Bear in mind as well that we are only at the beginning of the mobile revolution. New technology is emerging, and more features and functions are added to mobile phones every day—from location tracking to digital photography and devices such as glucometers, activity trackers, and other tools that are integrated with mobile phones or are mobile-enabled. It is impossible to predict the future, but phones, calls, messaging, and data will continue to drop in price as they become commoditized—making smartphones and emerging features and data more accessible and affordable. There will be more power-efficient devices that will lower energy costs and allow access to more features in resource-constrained environments. And there will be ever more features and functionality on this dynamic personal platform.

Privacy and Protection of Individuals

I would like to reinforce a caution that is touched on in this book: the need to respect the privacy and protection of individuals in face of the dizzying