Context
Public administration in Egypt needs to become more efficient and service-oriented. Currently around seven million Egyptians are employed in the public service. However, in many parts of the country access to public services is extremely limited. Even basic services are often organised in a complex manner and involve various tiers of administration and different authorities. Often it is difficult to find out who is responsible, which documents are required and how long one might have to wait for specific services.
The country now aims to decentralise and modernise its public administration system. Efforts to achieve this began prior to the upheavals of the Arab Spring and the overthrow of the government in power at the time. Since then, however, pressure for reform has become even more intense as one of the key demands of the revolution was improved public services. Consequently, the current government is seeking to raise its general popularity by introducing rapid, visible improvements to services for citizens. However, both in urban and rural areas, appropriate structures and trained staff are not yet in place to offer citizen-focused and needs-oriented services.
Objective
Citizens have improved access to local public services.
Approach
The programme supports the two partner ministries in improving access to services for citizens and introducing new, innovative and customer-focused services. This involves the following activities:
setting up or modernising local citizens’ service centres;
standardising and simplifying administrative workflows and processes and making them more transparent;
providing mobile services in previously underserved regions;
expanding opportunities for communication and interaction between citizens and government;
informing citizens about their civic rights and duties;
training staff at citizens’ service centres with a view to improving their organisational and professional skills and offering more customer-focused services.
In future, citizens are to be better informed about accessing public services and the conditions for using them. In this regard, the project is developing a catalogue of public services which will provide citizens with an overview of local services, the authorities responsible and conditions for using the services. In addition, staff in four local service centres in two governorates are receiving training. The objective here is to develop a faster and more efficient administrative system.
The improved services will directly benefit around 200,000 Egyptians. They will have better access to public services and be able to use a one-stop service centre to deal with all their requests and needs. This will save not only the citizens time and money, but also the state.