| 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
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The subsidy re-direction strategy derived by using an efficient mechanism that converted all the essential ideas into creative processes and unique solutions that help in meet the needs of stakeholders and satisfaction of the citizens.
According to ensure a professional workflow, there was a clear hierarchy described the role of each organization, starting from the Legislature authority his Royal highness prime minister’s office, who issued this resolution & commissioned the meat subsidy initiative to the ministry of labor & social development & the second initiative to the Electricity & Water Authority.
IGA supports organizations integration not only by including ministries/departments but also by linking vertically & horizontally organizational structures responsible so that information & service flows are consistent, efficient & effective. There are several stakeholders involved to deliver this services with seamless, fairness & flexible experience. Hence, Ministry of Social Development will build the formula for subsidies based on information acquired from IGA & then push the results to MoF to distribute the subsidy to citizen bank account without human interference.
The main innovation is accomplishing this strategy with technology methodology by adopted the technical implementation to the IGA instead of hiring private companies that helped in executing the whole process in more security way with zero cost by optimizing the existing technical resources in designing on-line systems & mobile applications that easy to access & monitored by admin functions. This relieved the burden on the ministries to collect all the citizens' data as well as facilitated the citizens registration without wasting their time & efforts.
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| 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
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The initiative was implemented by the IGA and the targeted population affected is clarified as below:
- Meat subsidy: all Bahrainis are effected by the implementation
- Electricity and Water Subsidy: all Bahrainis that have accounts in EWA (Electricity and Water Authority)
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| 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
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Both initiatives were implemented following the normal project management approach, below are the high level project phases mapped with the deliverables “for more details please refer back to the supporting document section implementation plan”:
Meat subsidy:
• Initiation phase: The project overall conceptualization was initiated with the details requirements, then the official communication and stakeholder management plan was prepared so that the project kick off take place. The high level deliverables of this stage are (Scope statement document, Project Kickoff meeting and business logic rules for the system)
• Planning phase: The details project plans were prepared (i.e. communication plan, risk management plan, issues management plan, change management plan, detail project schedule, detail requirement document, change request plan, knowledge management plan and resource management plan)
• Execution phase: The actual execution started were the team focused on the development of the system based on the requirements identified, the key deliverables in this phase was the actual development of the system (registration model & admin model), technical system documentation, system integration documentation based on the whole-of-government strategy, were services deployed throughout various government organizations are able to communicate and exchange data. This services were developed based on national Interoperability standards in the public sector to provide the ability for government organizations to share and integrate information by using common standards and interfaces with Ministry of Social development and testing activities based on the testing plan.
• Monitoring & control phase: It is a horizontal phase were it did the monitoring of all the project phases.
• Closing phase: The project closure with the knowledge management activities were conducted to ensure that the system is delivered as per the requirements defined and that the team is ready to maintain the system as required.
Electricity and Water Subsidy:
• Initiation phase: The initial concept of the system was prepared based on discussion with project key stakeholder and owner, the project scope was details with a clear distribution of the roles expected from each, detailing of all business logic rules and cases were prepared prior to the official project kickoff that happened during this stage.
• Planning phase: The details project plans were prepared (i.e. communication plan, risk management plan, issues management plan, change management plan, detail project schedule, detail requirement document, change request plan, knowledge management plan and resource management plan)
• Execution phase: The actual development of the system (web service) along with the integration between the IGA and EWA system to display the eligible case without the need to register based on the information available in both entities, the key deliverables in this phase was the actual system integration, technical documentation, customer facing interface (screens) and testing activities on the proposed system to ensure the reliability.
• Monitoring & control phase: It is a horizontal phase were it did the monitoring of all the project phases.
• Closing phase: The project closure with the knowledge management activities were conducted to ensure that the system is delivered as per the requirements defined and that the team is ready to maintain the system as required.
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| 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
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Stakeholders of both initiatives are divided into legislature authority, executive organizations, monitoring and supporting organizations the meat subsidy initiative to ministry of labor and social development&the second initiative to EWA.
Meat subsidy initiative there was a clear collaboration between all stakeholders and their roles are as described below:
•Ministry of labor and social development:
-Support the citizens to register in the subsidy system if any one cannot register online.
-Following up the process of adding the new eligible citizens of the financial support to the subsidy system.
-Certify IGz' letter and confirm it by the minister.
-Connect the ministry of finance to authorize the financial disbursement.
-Deal with legislature authority& media.
•Information and E-government Authority
-Create online registration public website and system
-Specify householders based on the database or personal avowal.
-Generate disbursement final report& send it to MLSD for one year.
-Provide technical support.
•Ministry of Finance
-Disburse the meat' subsidy amount for eligible citizens.
-Corroborate with Bahraini banks for any help in the bank details.
•Private sector "Banks"
-Provide MOF with citizens' IBAN instead of bank accounts.
As well, Electricity& Water subsidy initiative there was a clear collaboration between all stakeholders and their roles are as described below:
•Electricity and Water Authority:
-following up the process of adding the new eligible citizens of the financial support to the subsidy system.
-Create a portal to connect with IGA portal in order to receive the updated data and sufficient support
•Information and E-government Authority:
-Create public website for citizens to ensure their rights in the initiative.
-Create a portal to connect with EWA portal to confirm the sustainability and support.
-Update the citizens’ data every half hour and push them to EWA portal.
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| 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
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Meat’ subsidy initiative successful output:
1. Online website and system:
Provided transparency by Calculating the subsidy amount for each family
Allows online registration.
Ensures accessibility for all citizens reaching the poorest and most vulnerable with equality
Integrated with the meat subsidy database to update automatically.
2. Final reports:
Generated every three months contains the eligible citizens with their subsidy’ amount.
Certify and confirm by the minister of MLSD
Used for disbursement by MOF
3. Statistics for breakdown of beneficiaries in percentage for each batch of disbursement.
4. Admin Module controlled by MLSD that support all the backend functions of the initiative.
5. Achieve cost reduction and revenue generation goals
6. Ensure achieving healthy lives for future generation and promote well-being for all at all ages by saving the national resources and preventing any kinds of waste.
All of the above mentioned outcomes are contributing heavily into achieving multiple SDGs and based on our assessment those outcomes are mapped strongly with the SDG 3 “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” and SDG 2 “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”.
Electricity and Water’ subsidy initiative successful output:
1. A reliable and stable online integration service delivered exactly on the deadline required; that helps Bahraini government to save millions of dinars as exactly as planned. The system’ role is:
Easy retrieval of available data.
Trace every activity and deliverable involved in the process.
Improve process technology.
Generate different reports easily.
Improve performance.
Facilitate the daily work of the employees.
Maximize customer satisfaction by having their data without any registration.
Receiving citizens’ complaints to investigate and resolve by the support team in IGA.
2. The service development achieved in only two months and running till now for 11 months almost without issues. With great ability for apply change and extend even without any server or operation restart.
3. Achieve cost reduction and revenue generation goals to ensure the availability and sustainable of water and electricity for all.
All of the above mentioned outcomes are contributing heavily into achieving multiple SDGs and based on our assessment those outcomes are mapped strongly with the SDG 6 “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” and “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”.
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| 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
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• Needs of clear hierarchy to frame the works between all the organizations
This problem covered by a clear hierarchy described the role of each organization, starting from the Legislature authority his Royal highness prime minister’s office, who issued this resolution and commissioned the meat subsidy initiative to the ministry of labor and social development and the second initiative to the Electricity and Water Authority as following up organizations, and IGA as executive authority.
• Lack of resources:
Covered by:
1. Human resources providing by:
Adopted both initiatives to IGA in order to save time needed to deal with third party and benefit from their staff and technical experiences
2. Accurate citizens’ data providing by:
Solved by transforming both initiatives to be done in technological way by integrated with CRS, which is the centralized database where necessary and common data of all Bahraini citizens’ householders or members and creating systems to control the whole process.
3. Technical resources and tools provided by:
Utilized the exist resources of PCs, Servers, open sources software and programs
• Lack in Time and Funds:
Covered by governance the whole projects within governmental organizations without the need for third party. This saved lots of funds, because no need to pay for external staff, purchasing or renting additional tools and this saved lots of time as well.
• Need for data updated by the citizens
Most of citizens do not update their data on time which may cause some faults in calculating the subsidy’s amount or the new tariff for the electricity and water units. To solve this, the authorities sent used multimedia to inform the people about the necessary to update their data by SMS, mobile calls and email.
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