Commonwealth Local Government Forum

Pakistan – cleaning up with e-governance

28 March 2017

Improving sanitation in Pakistan is critical to reducing the risks of diseases like dysentery, cholera and typhoid. More than 52,000 children die each year due to diarrhoea; 14 million people still do not have access to safe drinking water; and over 90 million are living in poor sanitary conditions. The impact on the economy is just as bleak, estimated to be a loss of around 3.9% of the country’s gross domestic product. 
Responsibility for tackling this was given to the recently formed local governments in the four provinces, capital and cantonment areas to develop effective and sustainable systems of solid waste management, implement policies and fix responsibility on the polluters. However, the relevant service departments do not always respond to enquiries, especially in isolated or far flung areas; and there is no proof of whether they have completed a task.
An innovative, accountability initiative has been introduced to address this situation, part of the Forming Digital Local Council (DLC) for Social Accountability of Public Service Delivery Departments at District Level project; and spearheaded by the Local Councils Association of the Punjab (LCAP) - an Association of the Local Councils working towards improving local democracy since 2006. 

 

Online digital local council
The LCAP has established a model to meaningfully engage with remote and dispersed local councillors through online Digital Local Council (DLC) in seven districts of Punjab (Okara, Sahiwal, Pakpattan, Vehari, Khanewal, Multan, and Lodharan), with financial support from USAID. More than 1,400 councillors have initially been empowered to use the digital local council system, allowing them to send complaints, highlight deficiencies, make suggestions and follow up issues to ensure they are resolved with the relevant departments. They do this via text messages, providing written details and uploading pictures and videos. Smartphones can also used through an application developed for this purpose. A discarded rubbish heap can now be reported by the concerned councillor to the relevant department, with a copy to the District Coordination Officer and LCAP. And the public health department, responsible for provision of clean drinking water and sanitation, and the district health, responsible to provide basic health to the community will receive complaints directly. 
The software developed for this records all the content and can be retrieved at any time to show the performance of government departments and officials and the effectiveness of local services. Any reports on missing or substandard facilities, and delays can be shared with the media to raise public awareness, also highlighting success cases. Copies of these reports also go to the relevant district government departments and DLC members can download them from LCAP’s website. The focus of DLC is on major services of local councils such as drinking water supply, sanitation, solid waste management, health services, etc. and it is hoped that this improved complaint mechanism will ensure such crucial services are addressed. Read more

 

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