SMART SOLUTION TO IMPROVE SERVICE GLOBALLY
FOR ANYONE living in a city, the term “urbanisation” isn’t foreign. Annually, thousands of people migrate to cities across the world in pursuit of better lives, jobs and basic but essential services they lacked where they once lived.
The UN projects that by 2030, the number of people living in cities would have risen to five billion. This means that the resources required to govern a city will need to be stretched further and further. How will those in power succeed in meeting the demands?
This week, the Aam Aadmi Party (APP) in New Delhi, India, and led by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, introduced doorstep delivery of public services to its residents. According to a report by Livemint, the services, include driving licences and marriage certificates. Applicants are able to set a date, time and place for mobile sahayaks (assistants) to visit their houses to collect forms, documents and fees. When these have been processed, they are sent to their homes by speed post. How, in South Africa, do we even start when some of the systems have failed.
The APP’S decision to provide speedy services to 18.6 million people has nothing to do with luxury but simply speaks of a ruling party that has committed itself to finding innovative solutions and putting its people first.
This is what our government and the ruling party should have premised its Batho Pele project on – placing citizens first by making their lives easier and to accelerate development.
That in 2018, a grandmother or a pregnant woman has to leave home at 4am to queue at hospital or clinic is regression. Queuing for hours to receive grant money or to process forms to apply or renew driving licences is proof enough that South Africa needs a new approach.
It is not far-fetched to suggest that it is about time public servants leave their air-conditioned offices and go to the masses. Yes, we have seen health-care workers go out into communities. We’ve also seen the Department of Home Affairs, as well as the South African Revenue Service, using innovative ways to reduce snaking queues. But is it enough?
The APP’S approach speaks to human interaction and not machinery consultation. Face-to-face interaction and speeding up the delivery of services should not be part of an electioneering campaign as we have seen in the past.
Helen Clark, the administrator of the UN Development Programme said: “Often the big resources to support a country only come when it is plunged into crisis, when a stitch in time, might have saved nine.”
Many times governments, particularly ours, have waited until the 11th hour to fix cracks in the system which have often turned into monumental disasters needing even bigger resources to fix.
What New Delhi has done is to ensure it fixes the cracks at an early stage. Although the APP is not the ultimate ruling force in India like the Bharatiya Janata Party led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, what it has done for development is commendable. And yes, its project might not be tailored for our society but we can borrow from it.
Once can’t imagine what five billion people queuing for services or being let down by technology while using online services will look like. It slows production because of the time wasted and hampers social development.