By Philip Tengzu
Wechiau, (UW/R), June 23, GNA – As part of efforts to promote peace, the United Nations’ Peace Building Fund (PBF) project has introduced a mobile application to enhance public service delivery and establish robust referral pathways in the project communities.
The initiative was premised on the potential of poor service delivery and referral pathways to trigger community-level conflicts, which could disrupt peaceful co-existence, exposing the community and country to violent extremism.
The application focused on four services – security, social service, social justice and health – as part of the implementation of the UNFPA/UNDP PBF project through the Upper West Regional Coordinating Council.
Representatives from the Ghana Health Service, Ghana Education Service, security agencies and the Wa West District Assembly, among others were exposed to the rudiments of the Mobile Application at a day’s workshop.
They were introduced to the Application’s dashboard and taken through practical, step-by-step processes in using the application to lodge complaints for redress by the appropriate agency and institution.
Similar training was also held in Gwollu in the Sissala West District for public service providers in that district.
Speaking at the workshop at Wechiau at the weekend, Madam Rita Nyorka, the UNFPA Focal Person at the Upper West Regional Coordinating Council, said the intervention was a proactive approach to addressing service delivery-related drivers of conflict in the communities.
“We know that when it comes to access to public services, most of our clients have difficulty in accessing them and when they do and there are challenges, they do not know where to send their complaints for the service provided to act on”, she explained.
Madam Nyorka, therefore, indicated that the Mobile Application had been developed to bridge the gap between service providers and clients by facilitating timely access to complaints for redress to prevent escalation of grievances regarding service provision.
She encouraged service providers to address complaints they received, particularly through the application to give relevance to the initiative for possible scale-up to other districts and communities in the region.
Madam Nyorka encouraged effective collaboration between the service providers to ensure effective referral processes of complaints regarding service delivery.
Mr. Senanu Agbozo, the Project Consultant, observed that though some public service providers received complaints from the public, they were not swift in addressing those challenges.
He, however, said the new multifaceted mobile application would display a scorecard based on feedback from the public regarding the service as well as track the rate of complaint redress.
The application could function both online and offline but required internet connectivity to submit the complaint.
Some service providers who participated in the training expressed optimism that the Mobile Application would greatly enhance their service delivery efficiency.
Mr. Joseph Gbaara, the Deputy Director in charge of Supervision at the Wa West District Education Directorate, indicated that some head teachers did not report challenges in schools, such as teacher absenteeism.
He, however, said: “With the new application, we will get direct reports from the communities about what is happening in the schools, and we can quickly act on those issues.”
The PBF project presented the application’s monitoring logistics including a television and a tablet to the beneficiary districts.
The project was being implemented in eight border districts in three regions in northern Ghana including the Wa West and Sissala West Districts in the Upper West.
GNA
Edited by Caesar Abagali/Benjamin Mensah