Questions/Answers

The Mobile Community Transformation Center (Mobile CTC), launched in 2013 is a unique program enabling doorstep and multichannel delivery of customized public services, close collaboration between public and private organizations, at low cost and high impact and creating a carnival like atmosphere. It eliminated widely prevalent bureaucracy and promoted the inclusion and participation of the rural population, including women towards uplifting their social status and economic welfare. This initiative provides the rural, geographically isolated people who are poor, unserved and underserved, with direct access to services that elevates and improves their economic wellbeing. This concept ‘humanises’ public services and brings them to the rural citizens’ doorsteps, transforming the service channel and exceeding their expectations. The key components of this initiative such as doorstep service delivery, healthcare, educational, financial and economic empowerment of the rural citizens as well as enhancing social harmony underline the government’s commitment in levelling the income gap and creating a more socially balanced society. The services have been gathered from 37 various government agencies, ranging from birth registrations, land office services, assessment and quit rent collection, applications for aid, subsidies and scholarships and most importantly, healthcare services ranging from dental, optical screening, women health issues and pediatrics. Specific attention and care was needed for the rural women, who were deprived of basic healthcare needs such as reproductive and maternal health, cancer prevention care, awareness of sexually transmitted diseases and awareness programs for mental health and prevention of violence against women and a need to provide aid to single mothers who were economically impoverished via skill enhancement programs to promote self-sustenance. Realizing these social challenges, the Mobile CTC program was designed and launched.

The Mobile CTC program was initiated to provide the rural, geographically isolated people who are poor, unserved and underserved, with direct access to services that elevates their living standards and improves their economic welfare. Among the objective are: • to deliver key government services to the doorsteps of the rural poor ranging from birth registrations, applications for aid, subsidies and scholarships and most importantly, healthcare services which range from dental, optical screening, women health issues and pediatric healthcare. • to empower the rural poor financially and economically through identifying households under the category of ‘hard-core poor’ in Peninsula Malaysia and East Malaysia, whose household income on average was under RM600 (~USD150) a month • to improve the health of the rural people including children and woman through Women’s reproductive healthcare services such as pre-natal examination and family planning consultancy. • To provide entrepreneurial opportunities to the rural villagers, through mentoring programs, seminars and credit counselling and financial advice and aids via loans and grants. • to create a carnival like atmosphere by gathering people to socialize and enhance harmony as well as to give an opportunity to the rural women to earn extra income by selling home-cooked food and craft.

Circa 25% of the population of Malaysia (7.5 million people) were located in the outer regions with accessibility challenges due to natural topographic conditions such as mountain ranges, islands and interior regions far from the basic infrastructure. This and a fragmented public delivery system hindered access to basic government services leaving this segment impoverished and socio-economically stagnated. Many, including the indigenous tribes lacked basic healthcare especially for women and children, education advancement opportunities, micro-business assistance (employment variation and entrepreneurship funding) and licensing services. A simple birth registration or an identity card application warranted lengthy and costly travels. Rural women, were deprived of basic healthcare needs such as reproductive and maternal health, cancer prevention care, awareness of sexually transmitted diseases and awareness programs for prevention of violence against women. Realising these social challenges, the Government of Malaysia created an innovative initiative under the National Blue Ocean Strategy (NBOS) platform to assemble and deliver fundamental government services to the doorsteps of these people. The Mobile Community Transformation Centre (Mobile CTC) was launched in 2013 to promote the inclusion and participation of the rural and geographically disadvantaged including women.

The Mobile CTC is a unique program that enables doorstep and multichannel delivery of public services, customized public services, collaboration between public and private organizations, at low cost and high impact in public service delivery, and creating a carnival like atmosphere. It also eliminated bureaucracy which is widely prevalent in the public services delivery sector. The Mobile CTC initiative provides the rural, geographically isolated people who are poor, unserved and underserved, with direct access to services and has successfully advanced the nation in achieving its sustainable development goals namely in the areas of education, employment and entrepreneurship, health and increased involvement of women in nation building. The rural population being illiterate and poor were most often dependent on the middlemen to have access to such services as registration of birth certificate, identity card, application for licenses, aid and loans. The Mobile CTCs have brought all these services directly to the doorstep of the rural citizens and hence eliminated the need for any middlemen intervention, thus increasing the transparency of public service delivery. To date (2017) 2.6 million unserved and underserved rural citizens, have been able to access the services provided by the Mobile CTC programs.

As both Peninsula Malaysia and East Malaysia have mountainous terrains and a network of rivers, many settlements, especially of the indigenous people are generally beyond the reach of basic infrastructure and roads. Faced with infrastructural and topographic challenges and fragmented mode of delivery of basic public services to the rural unserved and underserved, the government had to rethink its service delivery strategy and create a unique methodology of delivering services to the rural population. The Mobile CTC program was delivered through suitable modes of transportation which included buses, terrain vehicles such as lorries and even boats to cross rivers and mountains to deliver the much needed public services to the doorsteps of the rural poor. Working across the boundaries of various ministries and agencies, breaking down silo thinking, close collaboration with the private sector as well as working with village heads on the ground to identify rural citizen needs was the cornerstone of the unique mobile CTC service delivery initiative. This ensured specific services are customized as per needs and the close collaboration forged among multiple ministries and agencies eliminated the need for setting up physical premises to offer government services bringing down costs while providing services with high impact.

This initiative has impacted 2.6 million rural citizens, who were able to access the services provided by the Mobile CTC programs to date (2017). The presence of healthcare providers in this outreach program has improved the quality of life of villagers across the board and of women and children in particular. The programs involve the National Heart Institute, National Population and Family Development Board (NPFDB) and other private and government health agencies in the areas of women’s breast cancer screening, cardiology screening, optical care, dental, diabetes, kidney/urology and others. Women’s reproductive healthcare services such as pre-natal examination, family planning consultancy, and postnatal care are provided by the NPFDB. Senior citizens with poor eye condition are given eye check-ups and provided with free prescription classes. In the field of education, seminars and tuition provided by lecturers and examiners have helped raise the number of rural pupils who passed the two major checkpoint examinations in Malaysia, PT3 and SPM. In the area of entrepreneurship and employment, youth job seekers are matched to suitable jobs according to their skillset and educational level though Jobs Malaysia, and villagers are provided entrepreneurial opportunities including aids via loans, grants, credit and debt management and financial advice.

As both Peninsula Malaysia and East Malaysia have mountainous terrains and a network of rivers, many settlements, especially the indigenous people are generally beyond the reach of basic infrastructure and roads. This initiative has taken on suitable modes of transportation which include buses, terrain vehicles such as lorries and even boats to cross the rivers and mountains to deliver much needed public services to the doorsteps of the rural poor in a very unique and lively way. The Mobile CTC is a unique program enabling doorstep and multichannel delivery of public services, collaboration between public and private organizations, at low cost and high impact and creating a carnival like atmosphere. It also has eliminated silo thinking and bureaucracy, widely prevalent in the the delivery of public services. Working with grass root village heads, needs are identified and specific services customized as required. Costs are lowered by fostering close collaboration among multiple ministries and agencies and eliminating the need for setting up physical premises to offer government services. Not only are the services provided in mobile units, the mobility of the services are such that they could now penetrate the most remote and unserved areas through even river boats.

The mobile CTC program was created as an off shoot to Malaysia’s Urban Transformation Center (UTC) program developed under the National Blue Ocean Strategy initiative and rolled throughout the country. The UTC concept is a one stop center providing public and private sector services under one roof with high efficiency and at low costs. This is achieved through working across ministries and agencies and close collaboration with the private sector. To bridge the urban rural divide, and to ensure equality in access to basic services, the challenge was then to bring the one stop center concept to the indigenous and rural village population despite the topographical and geographical challenges. As the UTC was a roaring and acclaimed success, the National Strategic Unit then planned and implemented this uniquely Malaysian Mobile CTC program to bring similar if not more services to the economically and geographically disadvantaged rural population not only to bridge the rural - urban divide but also to uplift the lives of the marginally disadvantaged especially women and indigenous tribes. This concept is indeed a very unique Malaysian innovation bringing public services to the doorstep of the rural population through different transportation modes including buses, lorries and boats.

Resources for planning included human resource talent at the State Economic Planning Units liaising with the respective village heads in the state to identify social issues and economic challenges facing the society at large and with government, private and NGO’s pertaining to services that will be brought to the people. Officers from the National Strategic Unit, ministries and over 80 agencies, NGOs and private sector practitioners are involved in preparing the sites up to two weeks prior to program roll-out. Logistic resources critical for the Mobile CTC’s included Buses, Vans, Lorries, Trucks, Boats, schools, village community centers and others. The entire Mobile CTC initiative requires a fair number of personnel who will travel with the initiative and respond to the needs and aid the rural folks accordingly. Given the travel time, distance and logistical issues including costs, the co-ordination team usually will arrange the Mobile CTC locations within proximity of a number of villages. Each program could cost as much as RM60,000 (~USD 15,000) to RM70,000 (~USD 17,500), however these expenses translate into approximately RM2.50 (~USD 0.625) per head. The programs are funded by the Ministry of Finance, together with sourcing from the private sector through strategic partnerships.

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This program was piloted in the rural areas of Lipis in the state of Pahang, Malaysia in 2013 and has since become a runaway success resulting in high grass root demand. Subsequently, the program has successfully been replicated in every state throughout Malaysia, including the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, where boats were used to access the geographical and topographically challenged rural areas. Up to date, the program has been rolled out in 400 locations in Malaysia with a minimum of 30 programs planned for Q1 of 2018. The World Bank has acknowledged the potential of this initiative and a number of emerging economies have shown keen interest in learning about and adapting the implementation in their respective countries.

The Mobile CTC program is the cornerstone of the National Blue Ocean Strategy Initiatives. Thus it has been sustained through financial provisions, breaking down the barriers, thorough planning and monitoring, and social and cultural events during the program. Funding has been provided via yearly budget allocations as well as public-private sector collaboration. Most of the medical supplies, for example, have been garnered by tapping into Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs of pharmaceutical organizations in the private sector. The program is sustainable as no one agency works independently. A number of agencies pool resources to plan, organize and deliver services to the underprivileged. The Mobile CTC program encompasses 37 services, garnered from government ministries and agencies working as one and touching the lives of the rural population. The programs have been collaboratively planned yearly with inputs from the grass root administration (village heads) and close monitoring and feedback management have been put in place to ensure the frequency and sustainability of the programs. 80 programs, on average, have been conducted throughout Malaysia per year and the demand from the ground has been on the rise. The program has also created a carnival like atmosphere when the Mobile CTC buses arrive at the village, attracting the whole village to socialize and gain awareness about the program. This has resulted in the continuous interest and demand for the program.

The Mobile CTC initiative has been designed to reach approximately 7.5 million or 25% of Malaysia’s population who have been identified as geographically and economically marginalized due to infrastructural and topographic challenges. Its success rate is clearly reflected in the 2.6 million unserved and underserved rural citizens, who were able to access the services provided by the Mobile CTC programs to date (2017). In 2013, the program was held in 30 locations serving 71,408 attendees. In 2014, held in 50 locations serving 84,671, In 2015 held in 77 locations serving 195,347, In 2016 held in 91 locations serving 1,660,287 and In 2017 held in 152 locations serving 576,629. However there still exists a substantial number of the rural population who would need to be provided with access to government services and the program will be rolled out over the next 5 years with further improvements and value added services. In the long term, this program will be extended to the semi urban areas of Malaysia where a substantial proportion of the population reside through the Rural Transformation Centers (RTC) giving them too the opportunity of receiving services at their doorstep and not having to travel the distance. This initiative is ongoing and one of the corner stone initiatives of the National Blue Ocean Strategy program aimed at transforming the public sector service delivery in Malaysia and hence is a long term initiative of the Government Transformation Program. Furthermore Malaysia’s Strategic 5 year Development Plans outline the critical need for the Government to transform its service delivery efficiency and effectiveness and ensure the socio- economic divide between the urban rich and the rural poor is narrowed. The program has successfully been replicated in every state having been rolled out in 400 locations throughout Malaysia, including the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, where boats were used to access the rural areas.

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Formal evaluation has been conducted in the form of questionnaires which were distributed to gather feedback on the level of satisfaction towards the Mobile CTC initiative. Data interpolation from the questionnaires reveals an increasing level of satisfaction, corresponding with the rise in numbers attending the programs. The evaluation criteria has also sought feedback about other services required by the rural people to elevate the quality of their life. For example, the need for heart checks had emerged as a prominent contender, and promptly attended to through a collaborative partnership with The National Heart Institute (private sector). It has provided free cardiology check-ups and referrals where necessary. This service would normally have been beyond the reach of the rural citizens. Other formal evaluations include a collection of verbal feedback via video interviews capturing the satisfaction level of the rural citizens and used for continuous improvements. The Mobile CTC initiative has helped identify households under the category of ‘hard-core poor’, including the indigenous population in Peninsula Malaysia and East Malaysia, whose household income on average was under RM600 (~USD150) a month. This has enabled them to receive benefits under the e-Kasih program which was mooted to eradicate the hard-core poor in Malaysia.

Program evaluations included a collection of verbal feedback via video interviews capturing the satisfaction level of the rural citizens. This allowed NSU to better understand the needs, expectations and aspirations of its people which was then translated into planning better and more effective Mobile CTC programs and adding more customized value added programs at different locations. The Mobile CTC initiative had helped identify households under the category of ‘hard-core poor’, including the indigenous population in Peninsula Malaysia and East Malaysia, whose household income on average was under RM600 (~USD150) a month. This has enabled them to receive benefits under the e-Kasih program which was mooted to eradicate the hard-core poor in Malaysia. The evaluation criteria has also sought feedback about other services required by the rural people to elevate the quality of their life. For example, the need for heart checks was a prominent request, and through a collaborative partnership with The National Heart Institute (private sector), free cardiology check-ups and referrals were provided where necessary. This service would normally have been beyond the reach of the rural citizens.

The impact of the program was evaluated via questionnaires and testimonials. The feedback mechanism also allows the people to directly communicate their level of satisfaction, expectations, goals and aspirations to the initiative team, who in turn will use this as a benchmark to improve on services and facilities provided to the rural people. The main challenge faced in gathering feedback and evaluation were the resistance and sometimes inability of the rural and indigenous people in giving formal written feedback. Although the written feedback was solicited through survey forms distributed, the village folk were more at home giving in situ oral feedback. Hence video interviews in their own mother tongue was then instituted to solicit feedback at the various locations and booths where the program was held. Photographs of the Mobile CTC program also became another indicator of the general success of the initiative as it provided an overall picture of the carnival like atmosphere and the participation by the villagers. Print and social Media coverages also became an indicator that gave some insight into the response of the villagers to the mobile CTC program.

The Mobile CTC program is an inclusive program initiated and designed by the National Strategy Unit under the Ministry of Finance Malaysia. The crux of the program is designed, following consultation and feedback from grass root village heads locally known as ‘Ketua Kampung'. These local leaders work closely with their respective district councils to identify areas and locations in need, which is then communicated to the state economic planning units. These State economic planning units are tasked to communicate their findings to the federal government/ministries, and the National Strategic Unit which is tasked to coordinate and execute the program. The Mobile CTC’s steering committee will then identify the location, the relevant government agencies, private sectors and NGOs who will participate at each location. The Mobile CTC program encompasses over 37 services, garnered from government ministries, agencies, NGOs and private sector players collaborating and working as one to touch the lives of the poorest and most vulnerable rural population. The government agencies include the Ministries of Finance, Health, Home Affairs (police, immigration, and registration), Transport, Defence, Department of Aborigine Affairs, and Ministry of Women among others. The private sector agencies include the National Heart Institute, Mobile Book Café, Pr1ma (affordable housing), Astro (Malaysia’s cable TV provider), National Bank of Malaysia, Company Commission of Malaysia, economic development councils such as the East Coast Economic Region Development Council, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, and Job Street assisting in matching job seekers to suitable jobs. These bodies’ pool resources, jointly plan, organize and deliver services and offer relevant services such as health screening, credit facilities, financial counselling, job opportunities and skill enhancement programs. The National Strategy Unit mediates between all stakeholders - village, municipal, state and federal.

Valuable lessons drawn from the Mobile CTC program touch on how governments can rethink the way we deliver public services to the people, while promoting sustainable development goals. During the initial program roll-out, NSU realized a gap between the envisaged public policy and economic & social reality on the ground. There were millions of unserved and underserved rural citizens lacking access to public services, ranging from as basic as registering a birth, obtaining an identity card up to serious health issues. Besides, there was a need for strategic linkages to be established between the rural farmers, market, and the produce to be made market ready. The close partnership between the government, the private sector and civil society could bring down cost as well as achieve high impact (for citizens and private and public sectors). The initiative utilizes idle resources and brings down cost by collaborating with the private sector within the framework of their CSR programs, By raising the initiative to the national level and involving the Prime Minister himself though the NBOS Summit, the initiative cuts across several implementation hurdles, such as red-tape and silo-mentality, the most common factors of failure of inter-agency programs.