Questions/Answers

The Huduma Mobile Outreach Program popularly referred to as “Huduma Mashinani’ is the 6th one-stop shop channel of service delivery developed by the Huduma Kenya Secretariat. ‘Huduma Mashinani ‘ is a Swahili phrase translated as: ‘ services at the grassroots”. Whereas we have established 52 physical Huduma Centres many citizens still live far away from where the Huduma Centers are located. Others are nomadic and move from place to place in search of water and pasture for their animals. In order to reach these people the Huduma Mashinani program was birthed. Huduma Mashinani is a deliberate effort where ‘the Government goes to the people’ instead of ‘the people looking for the Government’. Each Huduma Center has to carry out at least one mobile outreach exercise in each sub-county in one month. The Centre Manager will select services to be provided, identify members of staff to provide the services from among those working in the Huduma Centres, and proceed to an identified region where they will pitch up tent for 2 or 3 days. The Huduma Kenya Secretariat provides Huduma branded tents, desks, chairs, laptops, internet connectivity, printers and a power generator for staff and customers. During the outreach a number of services are provided. These include; birth registration, issuance of national identity cards, registration for health insurance, social security services, registration for disbursement of funds to youth, women and persons living with disabilities, basic health services, and Kenya Revenue Authority/taxation services. To complement these efforts, staff from Huduma Centres also visit specific institutions like schools, orphanages and homes to provide specialized services. These groups of customers do not have to visit a Huduma Centre or a Mashinani tent.

1. The “Huduma Mashinani” initiative seeks to reach and provide services to citizens in far flung areas who cannot access the physical Huduma Centers without incurring additional travel expenses. 2. To enables citizens’ to access multiple essential government services more conveniently. The Program is designed to serve the vulnerable in society, including the elderly and less privileged who may not have the means to travel to urban areas to access services. 3. To enables the staff involved to be in touch with local communities, learn their culture, which services they require more than others, and gather feedback on customer needs. 4. To respond to the constitutional requirement of providing access to high quality services by all citizens without discrimination. 5. To ensure all nomadic tribes who move from place to place in search of water and pasture for their livestock have basic registration documents like identity card now have them. 6. To reduce the cost of constructing physical Huduma Centres in the remote regions which may still not serve everybody, mobile outreach programs can reach everyone in the County by rotating from one region to another.

The mashinani program focuses on those who live in remote and far to reach areas. These are usually poor and sometimes nomadic are largely marginalized communities. The roads are not good. The initiative therefore aims at serving the vulnerable in society, including the elderly and less privileged, poor citizens and the most vulnerable from remote areas to receive essential government services at their convenience. Usually, the poor and most vulnerable in remote areas most times can’t access such services due to costs incurred in travelling to Government offices coupled with associated bureaucracy. The innovation thus saves them time and largely cuts down on the costs they would have incurred by bringing services where they are. Since the initiative is mobile and flexible, it can move from one place to another providing much needed services and thus providing all citizens with access. The services provided are owned by various Ministries, Departments and Agencies and necessitate consultations with all these agencies to agree on service standards and adherence to these. Other stakeholders are also consulted especially the local administration and television and local FM radio stations to mobilize the community to visit the Huduma Mashinani sites for services.

The menu of services provided during Huduma Mashinani outreach programs responds to the sustainable development goals. These services include; health services, adult education services, water services, electricity services, construction of roads and buildings services, lands services, national cohesion services, etc. The outreaches are held in each County to ensure no region is left out. This has eliminated marginalization of some communities as used to happen. Since Huduma Mashinani is a citizen-focused approach to delivery of services, it empowers citizens to participate in the economic development. It provides them with the necessary services thus creating an enabling environment to access business and other opportunities. The program saves time for the citizens enabling them to focus their energies elsewhere. Government services are provided from one stop at proximity and convenience to the citizens. Various government ministries, departments and agencies (MDA) are set under one roof and supported remotely by their back offices. Out of the 52 Centre Managers, 30 are female while 22 are male. This is a huge achievement considering that most managerial posts are usually held by men rather than women and thus addressing the issue of gender inequality.

The Huduma Mashinani initiative takes the services to the people. Therefore all citizens including the vulnerable in society, the elderly and less privileged, and the poor citizens are provided essential government services where they live. They do not have to travel far to access these services and incur unnecessary costs and suffer inconveniences and poor customer service. The initiative has also helped greatly reduce the time spent seeking services from several government offices located in different geographical regions far apart. Previously citizens visited government offices multiple times to receive a single service. Special considerations have been made for needy groups; for instance, a wheel chair is provided for those who need it, the elderly and mothers with young are given priority, the deaf and dumb have a staff member trained in sign language, and even those who cannot walk are visited in their houses and served. Services offered include national identifications, birth certificates, filing tax returns, social security, health insurance, voter registration, land services, pension services, electricity services, etc. All these benefit different groups.

Women, people living with disabilities and youth have benefited by accessing services like the Women Enterprise Fund, the Youth fund and Uwezo fund which they use to start and run businesses. To date, 704,000 women have benefited greatly because of this fund, over 274,000 have been trained for free by our officers found in every constituency. Further, the youth are able to apply for government tenders in a special reserved category referred to as ‘access to government procurement opportunities’ (AGPO). Issuance of the AGPO certificate is one of the services provided during mashinani. Business people are able to do business better by accessing all services they need. These include name search, registration of business names and companies, etc. Many more Kenyans have been able to acquire National Identity cards and voter registration services to participate voting; students are accessing loans for higher education, etc. Other services available include birth certificates, health insurance, social security, etc. Many Kenyans have also been able to access and register for the National Hospital insurance fund greatly benefiting many with a health insurance for their families. This has led to better medical care as it is now affordable to more Kenyans.

The initiative can easily reach citizens living in remote areas and even nomadic tribes who move from place to place in search of water and pasture for their livestock. Going after nomads to provide services is a first by the government. Secondly, from the year 2015, all Huduma Centers always participate in this global event by among other activities, undertaking mobile outreach services in different locations including hospitals, prisons and markets. These outreaches were so well received by citizens that the Huduma Mobile Outreach or Huduma Mashinani was formalized as the sixth channel of service delivery by the Huduma Kenya Secretariat. Each Centre Manager is now required to develop a program where he/she has to undertake an outreach program once in a month in a specific region and continuously move to other regions to ensure all citizens are reached. This is innovative because traditionally, citizens were expected to visit government offices to receive services and endure the bureaucracy and sometimes corruption inherent in the public service. With this initiative however, the government is deliberately sensitive to citizen needs and their unique circumstances; seeks them out and goes to them.

As described in (a) above, Huduma Mashinani which is a Swahili translation of ‘services at the grassroots’ is an original initiative that was began by Mr. Reuben Ogeda, Centre Manager of Wajir Huduma Centre. His centre is located in a vast county and he needed to reach the nomadic tribes who lived very far away from the location of the Huduma Centre. Secondly, during the global customer service week activities, the secretariat encouraged all Huduma Centres to go out of their way and make an innovative difference in serving their customers. Several of them arranged to visit institutions like hospitals, prisons, orphanages and schools where they provided specialized services to those groups. Due to their success, a decision was made to formalize this as the 6th channel of service delivery as it was going even further than the physical Huduma Centre which have remained very popular. Therefore, each Huduma Center in all the 47 Counties in Kenya is expected to undertake at least one mobile outreach exercise in each Sub-County in one month. During the outreach a number of services are provided giving priority to services highly sought-after services by the local communities.

Staff who provide services during Mashinani are sourced from the Huduma Centre located in the County within which the mashinani is being carried out. The Huduma Kenya Secretariat provides tents branded in Huduma colours. They are set up to accommodate at least 25 Huduma Staff members and equipped with desks and chairs for staff and customers. The secretariat also provides water and allowances for staff for providing services outside their duty stations and all through lunch hours without a break. Some of the services being provided in the outreach program are automated and so require internet connectivity to access back-end systems. This is virtually provided through wireless WIFI modems in places without internet connectivity. A power generator is provided to power laptops and printers. Transport is provided to the outreach location and back. Since services provided are owned by several agencies, these also provide much needed support like equipment and necessary materials, some food and drink for staff. The local administration together with the Huduma Kenya Secretariat, on the other hand mobilizes the community to turn out in large numbers.

Yes

The University of Nairobi through the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHSS) while emulating the Huduma Mashinani initiative have also carried out several “Mashinanis” under their dubbed “Huduma Services Centre” where they have integrated the finance, Academic, Procurement and Human Resource and Administration departments in there Marketing strategies. The Ministry of Health has adapted this approach in conducting several campaigns such as “Catch up” aimed at increasing access and utilization of essential health services. The catch-up campaign aimed at reaching citizens in Kenya’s most vulnerable counties that have remained unreached with critical health services such as routine immunization for children and antenatal care for pregnant women among others. The campaign aimed at ensuring that most people are reached with the necessary health services which include; include immunization, nutrition screening and care services, well-child and sick-child services, adult outpatient services and referrals and antenatal and postnatal services.

Economically, the Huduma Mashinani initiative available resources and is less expensive e.g. Huduma Centres only set up camps that involves tents and seats for the staff and the customers. This is set up in an open environment and services are given to the citizens. It is easy to set up tent because the Centre Managers have to continuously carry out outreaches, business processes are well understood by all agencies involved and the Huduma Kenya Secretariat has a budget to continuously support the outreaches. Further to this the Secretariat is planning to purchase specially designed trucks to be used in providing these services to make it easy to set up camp and move from place to place. Socially, the continuous high demand for government services and high population growth means that these have to be provided. Citizens have now become acutely aware of these services and continuously request for them. No one else is providing these services. The Local administration is also continuously sensitizing citizens about services available and where they can access them. Environmentally, the set up of services provided is very flexible and can easily move from place to place maintaining the same high standards all the time. Many of the services are automated and ICT supported thus using less paper work and not a threat to the environment.

The initiative has now been mainstreamed into the Huduma Kenya programs and plans as the 6th formal channel of service delivery. The other channels are; Huduma Centres, Huduma Contact Centre, Huduma Life App, E-Huduma portal and Huduma Smart Service Card. To make it more effective, the Secretariat has budgeted for purchase of specially designed trucks to be used during the mobile outreaches to ease movement and inconveniences. The Huduma Kenya Program which is in charge of this initiative has a very strong governance structure composed of a Summit at the apex chaired by His Excellency the President of the Republic of Kenya, followed by a Technical Committee whose members are Cabinet Secretaries responsible for services deployed in all Huduma Channels and a There is also a Service Leaders Committee which meets every three months to discuss the progress of services on each channel and resolve any issues arising. At the local level there is a County Service Delivery Committee chaired by the County Commissioner and to which the Center Manager is a Secretary. The Huduma Kenya Secretariat is transitioning into a Semi-Autonomous Government Agency. This will make it easier to mobilize resources and make faster decisions in making the mobile outreach program and other initiatives sustainable.

Yes

During the mobile outreach programs a questionnaire is always availed to capture information in various areas including, how many citizens are served/benefiting and, what other services need to be provided. We also determined cost savings using the number served. During the global customer service week in the month of October, each Huduma centre is encouraged to innovatively serve customers. Many of them undertake outreach programs. At the end of the week, an evaluation committee set up by the Huduma Kenya Secretariat evaluates the different initiatives for purposes of awarding the best. At the same time the Huduma Kenya Secretariat is also evaluated by the Institute of Customer Service/Experience. Three times in a row, the Secretariat was awarded the first prize in customer service. Additionally, we were also awarded the first prize in community service due to the mobile outreaches. The Huduma Mobile Outreach Program was also presented as an innovation to the African Association for Public Administration and Management (AAPAM) Award for innovative management where it went through a series of evaluations and shortlisted amongst the five finalists. During the 38th roundtable AAPAM conference Huduma Mashinani was ranked second and awarded the silver trophy.

The outcome of evaluating each outreach activity informed the secretariat on the need to increase the number of services provided based on customer requests. The Huduma Kenya secretariat also improved its support to the different teams, financially, ICT and logistics. The initiative has been lauded by the government and officially become a channel of service delivery which is being improved by budgeting for the purchase of specially designed trucks to be used in future outreach programs. Evaluation results of the customer service week activities which included mobile outreaches have become a game changer in service delivery. These have further improved from setting up a tent in a remote area to physically visiting vulnerable citizens like the elderly and disabled in their houses, the sick in hospitals and prisoners in prison. Many more Huduma centres have adopted this and citizens now say that government has come in their homes. Evaluation of the initiative by AAPAM led to the Secretariat being awarded the silver trophy for the 2nd best initiative in innovative management. This has been very well received by the country and continues to inspire the public service to continuously transform service delivery.

Indicators used in evaluating the performance of each outreach program by the Huduma Kenya Secretariat are; names of services provided, number of people served, any services requested for by customers but not available at the mashinani tent, overall total number of customers served and the center managers’ observations, recommendations or comments. Indicators used in evaluating the performance of Huduma Centres during the global customer service week were: innovation, internal customer initiatives, external customer initiatives, and community service. Indicators used by the Institute of Customer Experience in evaluating the performance Huduma Kenya’s performance were varied but included community service and customer focus. Indicators used by AAPAM in evaluation the Huduma Mobile Outreach initiative before and during the actual presentation before a panel of judges were: innovation, impact, replication and sustainability.

The Huduma Mashinani is a menu of services from various Ministries, Departments and Agencies. All of these provide the necessary support which include; staff, equipment and other materials needed. Huduma Kenya provides ICT support like internet connectivity, printers, photocopiers and power generators. It also provides Huduma branded tents, chairs, desks, water and allowances to staff. The local administration mobilizes the different communities to come to the mashinani site for services. Local radio and TV stations are also used to publicize the outreaches.

The key lessons learnt are; firstly, the initiative has proved to be one of the easiest and cheapest ways to provide multiple services in remote areas. It is way cheaper than constructing a physical Huduma Centre, yet very effective in service delivery. Secondly, it has provided flexibility. By its nature, it is very easy to move from place to place even in the very remote areas and serve customers where they are. It is not like constructing a physical building and waiting for customers who come trickling in as we have experienced in the remote and sparsely populated areas. To further improve the initiative and make it more effective, we are planning to move from the use of tents to using specially designed mobile trucks fitted with desks, computers, printers, public address system, and internet connectivity. These will ease movement from one place to another. Huduma mashinani has drastically reduced the cost of providing services to all citizens. Constructing new Huduma centres would have cost approximately US $ 126,274.509. At the same time the citizens so far served have made savings amounting to US $ 17.2 million which they would have incurred in transport costs, man hour lost and corruption.