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Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Title
Please provide a name for your action learning plan.
Embedding a culture of Innovation to strengthen governance and transparency in public service delivery in Namibia
Challenge statement
Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge.
Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.
BIG BET
Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)
Our challenge is that Public Service Reform efforts in Namibia are slow to take off, require mindset change and are rarely transformative, which illustrates the relevance gaps in the current reform model and need for innovative (and collaborative) approaches.
Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?
Experimentation and innovation is not widely embraced in the Public service. In order to develop the competencies required to advance the reform agenda, sense-making, critical thinking, decision-making, creativity, experimentation and problem-solving is fundamental. This requires a bureaucracy to adopt various innovative and continuous learning principles as it evolves to meet the chaning demands of the citizens and public it serves. The experience of successful countries such as Finland shows that bureaucracies are most effective when they experiment with new and innovative ways of problem-solving and addressing the complex challenges at hand. However, experimentation is difficult because it appears to go against the logic of rule-following behaviour and risk aversion, together with the rigid thrusts to enforce accountability. Successful experimentation requires significant changes in the philosophy of administrative reform in many countries, but this depends on local conditions and policy priorities. As a case in point, the Namibian government initiated the e-Government project a few years into independence to enhance the efficient public service delivery through the usage of information and communication technology (ICT). Unfortunatly, progress has been slow; The UNDP in a recent report argued that “ICTs are a catalytic tool to promote services to the most marginalised populations, while enhancing transparency and accountability”. Furthermore, citizens have greater “access to new communication channels, and thus have 'louder' voices in decision-making and public policymaking processes”. The UNDP calls the potential of increased citizen participation in government decision-making through e-governance as “e-participation”. To underscore the need to embed innovation in its operations, the Namibian government launched The Public Sector Innovation Policy in 2020. With its aims of promoting and nurturing creativity, innovation and genuine citizen collaboration to improve efficient and effective service delivery, it will also ensure achievement of the nation, international agenda of meeting the SDGs.
Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GCR2017-2018/03CountryProfiles/Standalone2-pagerprofiles/WEF_GCI_2017_2018_Profile_Namibia.pdf https://neweralive.na/posts/e-government-project-reform-initiative
Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.
https://www.namibian.com.na/184880/archive-read/E-governance-And-Corruption-In-Africa
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-07/23/c_139233182.htm
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiEnf3ejeTvAhX6QEEAHedxACkQFjADegQIDBAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbc.na%2Fnamibian-public-sector-innovation-policy&usg=AOvVaw14XZ65Td0noe9t9ADMHuU2 https://www.namibianewsdigest.com/prime-minister-launches-public-sector-innovation-policy/
Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?
UNDP, as part of its new value proposition will be focusing on building a portfolio of solutions and experiments for improved and enhanced governance. With its integrator role, UNDP could harness its convening power to leverage partnerships through the Accelerator Labs to introduce new methods, approaches, data sources, experiences, perspectives and tools in an effort to enhance participation across all levels.
Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?
Re-thinking Innovation and Service Delivery: AccLabNam and the public service of Namibia leverage partnerships, collaboration and policy experimentation to enhance public service delivery.
Partners
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
Office of the Prime Minister
What sector does our partner belong to?
Government (&related)
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
The Accelerator Lab is collaborating with various departments at the Office of the Prime Minister, Anti-Corruption Commission, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology and Ministry of Urban and Rural Development to test different ways of enhancing participation and collaboration to improve public service delivery to develop trust and continued accountability.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
What sector does our partner belong to?
Civil Society
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
The Partnership also extends to include civil society organizations such as the Namibia Institute for Democracy (NID), a civil society organization that works with the youth and marginalised groups.
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
Yes
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
How might we understand the challenges, opportunities and levers for change to improve service delivery from a systems perspective?
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Test
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
The Accelerator Lab will work closely with the Innovation Teams at the Office of the Prime Minister to establish communities of practice and support the work of the innovation Champions by providing training first on sensemaking, systems dynamics and design thinking. After providing them with the tools, we will test and compare across groups to see which group of champions might come up with new and innovative forms of new / enhanced services.
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
Citizen data and user journeys will explore to what extent the needs of the citizens are met and satisfied, together with generating empathy maps, pain points for improvement. Ethnographic and socio-economic data will be used to highlight further variables which could be mapped to services and use of these services across various demographic groups. The value will be to look at things from both a user and a citizen's perspective which will enhance trust, along with addressing issues of efficiency and effectiveness.
Closing
Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?
The Office of the Prime Minister is the highest authority to partner with on this initiative. Through the public sector innovation policy, it will reach 27 central government offices, 14 regional councils, 52 local authorities and 92 public enterprises. This will amount to addressing and influencing the entire public sector population of 120 000 (and growing employees) across the public sector in future.
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10Reduced innequalities
16Peace, justice and strong institutions
17Partnerships for the goals
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