A Prototype for Monitoring Service Delivery by Citizens in County Government in Kenya Based on Service Oriented Architecture a Case Study of Nairobi City County

Abstract

In 2010, a new constitution was promulgated bringing in a devolved system of government, decentralizing decisions and services at local level of governance. The county government is constituted to provide service to citizens. However in some county government in Kenya, there has being numerous issues regarding poor service delivery to citizens. Nairobi city government was on the spot over its questionable performance for not effectively addressing the issues regarding services delivery well. There are issues of waste management, sewerage and on site sanitation that are in a poor state. Other problems include: poor health management, poorly managed of Nairobi county hospitals, lack of essential drugs hence they cannot adequately serve city residents. It perform well in revenue collection, However as revenue collection increases, service delivery is on the decline, thus effecting efficient and effective ways to offer better services to county residents. The use of ICTs provides innovations opportunity for empowering citizens by forming ways for monitoring, reporting services, accessing information and engaging citizens. The research project aimed at investigating application of ICT technologies in solving issues regarding service delivery monitoring in county government, therefore addressing challenges of current systems which it‟s not automated, limited into monitoring in real time, monitor robust issues, tracking of citizen‟s issues, analysis of data, and integration with other systems and sharing of data. In this project two approaches strategy was used. The case study of Nairobi city county governments sectors of Environments and Road and lighting, Eight wards within two sub-counties and citizens within those wards was studied to understand the current monitoring system, processes and applicable of technologies in solving issues regarding service delivery. The design and creation strategy was used to develop prototype based on service oriented methodology. The findings showed that the current systems, methods and processes were not sufficient and effective to monitor service delivery effectively hence use of service oriented monitoring system integrated with (mobile app, SMS and web app) would address such challenges. The service oriented monitoring system was integrated with three components (mobile app, SMS and web app). Through use of three modes (mobile app, SMS and web app) citizens were able to monitor service delivery in real time. They acknowledged that use of technologies innovation improved service delivery monitoring process. The ward administrators through their web dashboard were able to view and taken an action on reported events in their respective wards through the web and the mobile app. The sector users were responsible for resolving issues forwarded to them by the ward administrators through the web portal and the mobile app. The M & E officers were responsible for seeing if the issues being reported by the citizens were real and if action was taken by the ward administrators and the sector users though web portal and mobile app. The data was also sharable to user application using API. The evaluation of the system showed that it provided effective and efficient way to monitor service delivery.