REA VAYA WORLD CLASS BUS RAPID TRANSPORT

PUBLIC SECTOR INNOVATIONSTELE-RADIOLOGY

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REA VAYA WORLD CLASS

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THE SOUTH AFRICAN PUBLIC SECTOR INNOVATION JOURNAL

2 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

CENTRE FOR PUBLIC SERVICE INNOVATION (CPSI)

The CPSI is mandated to develop innovative, sustainable and responsive models for improved service delivery. The work of the CPSI is guided by an understanding of innovation in a public sector context as “the creation and implementation of new and service delivery solutions (systems, processes, methods, models, products and services) resulting in significant improvements in outcomes, efficiency, effectiveness and quality”.

The CPSI facilitates the unearthing, development and implementation of innovative ideas within and throughout the public sector. It achieves this by facilitating pilot projects aimed at demonstrating the value of innovative solutions, and through activities that create an enabling environment within the public sector to support and sustain innovation. The CPSI’s cross-sector reach makes it a resource for the whole of government, thus bridging institutional boundaries.

Through active research and knowledge sharing platforms and products, the CPSI identifies and shares lessons and information on innovation trends nationally, across Africa and internationally. The CPSI partners with a range of individuals and institutions in government, business and the community in exciting and mutually beneficial ways. This partnership model allows us to leverage financial and/or intellectual capital in support of government priorities.

The CPSI is guided by the following fundamental principles:

• DEMAND-DRIVEN: The CPSI is committed to responding to identified and clearly articulated service delivery challenges and their root causes.

• MULTI-STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT AND PARTNERING: The CPSI does not directly deliver services. Its emphasis is on facilitating partnerships which cut across all spheres and sectors of government to address

silos that stifle integration and holistic approaches.

• LEVERAGING ICT AS AN ENABLER: The CPSI supports Government departments in enhancing access to services through leveraging and exploiting the power of technology in their operations and services.

• REPLICATION: The CPSI advocates for and drives the adaptation, replication and mainstreaming of innovative

solutions.

• EMBRACING DIVERSITY: Innovations rarely happen in a closed circuit or homogeneous setting. To find holistic solutions to challenges, multi-stakeholder teams are gathered to interrogate these challenges.

VisionA solution-focused, effective and efficient Public Sector through innovation.

Mission

To act as facilitator for the unearthing, development and practical implementation of innovative solutions within and throughout the public service.

Mandate• Provide the Minister for Public Service and Administration with independent, diverse and forward-looking research findings

and advice on innovative service delivery with a specific focus on government’s priorities.

• Enhance public service transformation through innovation partnerships for incubating, testing and piloting innovative solutions.

• Support the creation of an enabling environment for innovation within the structures and agencies of the South African government.

3VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014 3

CONTENT

MANAGING EDITOR Lydia Phalwane • EDITOR Welcome Sekwati • EDITORIAL TEAM Nsizwa Dlamini , Thuli Radebe, Pierre Schoonraad, Lindani Mthethwa, Julia Ndlovu • PRINTING Shereno

ISSN:2075-6054

Ideas That Work: The South African Public Sector

Innovation Journal is a biannual journal published

by the CPSI.

The views of the authors may not necessarily

be those of the CPSI. Copyright of material in this publication is vested in the CPSI and/or the authors. Requests to republish any of the material should be

directed to the CPSI.

An electronic copy of this journal can be downloaded

from www.cpsi.co.za/publications.php

ADDRESS: Corporate 66 Office Park, Cnr Lenchen & Von Willich,

Centurion, 0046

Tel: +27 (12) 683 2800Fax: +27 (12) 643 0943E-mail: [email protected]

www.cpsi.co.za

SEND CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EDITOR AT

THE ABOVE CONTACT DETAILS.

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1. EDITORIAL1.1 Editor1.2 Minister’s Call 1.3 Message from the Deputy Minister 1.4 From the CEO’s Desk

2. PUBLIC SECTOR INNOVATION 2.1 CFO Helpdesk 2.2 Rea Vaya 2.3 eThekwini’s Communal Ablution blocks for informal settlements2.4 Secondary School Improvement Programme (SSIP)2.5 Tele-radiology in KwaZulu-Natal 2.6 The Management of Performance Assessments Tools2.7 RK Khan Hospital

3. INSIGHTS 3.1 Innovation in the public sector3.2 Innovation to close the equality gap

4. NEWS BRIEFS4.1 Robots that can save the lives of miners 4.2 A safer, more efficient stove for low-income households4.3 South African fly farm to produce protein from waste4.4 South Africa in digital laser ‘world first’4.5 Under the robotic knife4.6 CityLab 20144.7 Liquid fuel from coal

5. FUTURE WATCH5.1 Can Machines replace Executives?

6. AWARDS AND ACCOLADES 6.1 2014 CPSI Public Sector Innovation Awards6.2 South Africa receives UN Public Service Award6.3 eThekwini scoops sanitation award6.4 SA students win US prize for fire-alert innovation

7. INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION 7.1 Digital Pen for Kenya’s Veterinary Services7.2 A remote controlled water pumping system from Thailand

8. REVIEWS8.1 The Leadership (R)evolution8.2 The Frugal Innovator: Creating Change on a Shoestring Budget8.3 i-teams Report: The Teams and Funds making innovation happen in governments around the world

4 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

From left to right:

WELCOME SEKWATI - Deputy Director: Enabling Environment

PIERRE SCHOONRAAD - Chief Director: Research and Development

THULI RADEBE - Chief Executive Officer

LINDANI MTHETHWA - Chief Director: Solution Support and Incubation

LYDIA PHALWANE - Chief Director: Enabling Environment

NSIZWA DLAMINI - Deputy Director: Innovation Research

JULIA NDLOVU - Director: Stakeholder Engagement

EDITORIAL TEAM

5VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

INNOVATION HOLDS THE KEY TO LIBERATION

Welcome to this edition of Ideas that Work: the South African Public Sector Innovation Journal.

More like an oasis for knowledge and information, the journal continues to provide a nourishing stream of valuable lessons to learn and shared as your companion in this critical journey of transformation. These invariably include case studies, from here and elsewhere in the world, award-winning projects, highly informative and inspiring articles and many more items to help nurture Government’s goal of a visionary development-oriented public service that is geared to meet the needs of a present-day citizenry.

These stories provide for interesting reading to our readership who are mostly public officials hailing from various countries who are co-participants in various UN activities on innovation. But above all, it is a true testimony of how, adopting innovation as an approach to service delivery improvement can change a country’s fortunes to the better.

Of critical importance this journal doubles up as a valuable learning platform that allows for knowledge sharing amongst public officials and a strategic repository for reference and replication of projects where need arises, aim being to avoid

reinvention of the wheel and unnecessary wastage.

It is not fictitious claiming that our public service has enormously bought into the idea of thinking and working innovatively. In this edition, we therefore once again, feature a selection of innovative projects from various public sector institutions which invariably show the impact of innovation in positively influencing government’s performance capacity. These include the Rea Vaya bus Transport from Johannesburg Metro which is being replicated in Tshwane amongst other places, eThekwini communal ablution blocks for informal settlements, Tele-Radiology in KwaZulu-Natal and the Secondary School Improvement Programme, which have all won various awards both here and internationally. Many public institutions facing similar challenges can certainly benefit enormously from these stories of excellence, some of which have put our country on the international map.

The section on newsbriefs always makes for fascinating, exciting reading. In this edition we bring amazing innovative solutions such as robots that can save miners’ lives, a safer, cost-effective stove for low-income households, South Africa’s digital laser and life-saving robots

that can carry out complicated surgical procedures.

As a rule of thumb and standing practice, we continue with our culture to celebrate excellence and sterling performance in the form of projects that have earned recognition, albeit local or internationally for their excellence and prowess. Read amongst others about the prestigious UN Public Service Award that South Africa received, South African students winning a US prize for a fire-alert innovation and eThekwini’s sanitation award, also from the UN.

And finally, true to our commitment towards promoting cross-pollination of innovative inventions amongst various countries, we feature an article on the infamous Digital pen which, in Kenya has become a highly critical tool in the provision of veterinary services and, an encouraging account on how Thailand defiantly provides water to citizens under violence riddled conditions.

As you read and interact with this journal, please bear in mind that innovation is all about the quest for progress and development. Enjoy reading and most of all, be a torch-bearer for the promotion of innovation for an improved service delivery.

EDITORIAL

The commitment by the public sector to embrace innovation as a new way of thinking around possible solutions to service delivery challenges is inarguably on the rise.

By Welcome Sekwati

6 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

MINISTER’S CALL

FROM THEMINISTER’S DESK

In September 2000, 189 countries, including South Africa, signed the United Nations Millennium Development Resolution (A/RES/55/2) pledging to deliver on the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the targeted date of 2015. These include halving extreme poverty rates, combating HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases, improving maternal health and reducing child mortality, as well as promoting universal primary education, amongst others.

Since then, all member states galvanised unprecedented efforts to accelerate on their progress in delivering on this important course to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.

With 2015 almost upon us, it is encouraging to note the progress made in delivering upon this important

blueprint. Most notably, is the sharp global decline in the number of people living in abject poverty between 1990 and 2010, as reported in the 2013 UN MDG Report. In addition, more than ever before, more people are able to access life-saving HIV treatment, while there is reportedly parity in primary education between girls and boys globally.

From the onset, our Government has always been a willing signatory to the MDGs. Lately we sought to seamlessly align the Vision 2030 as espoused in our National Development Plan (NDP) with the UN’s MDGs to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality. As a country, we have made commendable progress in terms of the MDGs, reducing by half the number of people earning less than a dollar a day as well as those experiencing hunger. The country

has also achieved its goal of ensuring access to primary education for all.

However, we are very well aware of the many challenges that still plague our citizens and the need for us to work even harder and smarter and find innovative solutions that can ensure ultimate success.

We are also aware that while globally numbers of people living in extreme poverty have drastically declined, our region of sub-Saharan Africa remains the only region in which the number continues to rise, accounting for more than one-third of those living on less than $1,25 per person per day according to the 2013 UN MDG Report. We therefore need to intensify our efforts in terms of Millennium Development Goal 8, to leverage on our existing partnerships to ensure development.

As a country, we have made commendable progress in terms of the MDGs, reducing by half the number of people earning less than a dollar a day as well as those experiencing hunger. The country has also achieved its goal of ensuring access to primary education for all.

We should all work tirelessly to champion innovation.....

By Hon. Collins Chabane, MP, Minister for Public Service and Administration


We face increasing demands from citizens for continued, if not even more improved seamless service experiences. Citizens are increasingly expecting Government to reduce their cost-to-be-served, including time cost, whilst achieving efficiencies that help reduce its cost-to-serve.

Meeting the needs of our citizens would require of our Government to transform into a state machinery that works effectively and efficiently. We have to strive to be a Government that knows where its people are and what they need – a Government that has, as its defining characteristics, agility, flexibility and speed to respond rapidly with services that citizens really need.

This should begin with an honest acknowledgment by all public officials that the citizens that we serve today, are no longer passive consumers of public services, but that they:• are sophisticated and more

informed, thus demanding better, more efficient, more personalised services and multiple channels of access to match their preferences at their convenience; and

• want a coordinated, accessible and integrated experience.

Altogether, this amounts to pressure on the public service to respond accordingly with innovative solutions

that will bring a modernised service delivery environment. This, in turn, imposes an urgent need for the entrenchment of a culture of innovation which encourages creativity, innovative thinking and public sector entrepreneurship.

We need to ask ourselves very basic, fundamental questions:• How do we get world-class

education to children in under-serviced areas where there are no roads and learners have to negotiate raging rivers to get to school, where learners are taught under trees and where large numbers of learners have to share a few teachers, etc.?

• How do we maximise access to quality health for all, but, importantly, for our destitute and remote communities?

• How do we get clean water to communities?

• How do we, once and for all, get rid of the sewerage bucket system that has been haunting us for decades?

As a country, we have always been at the forefront in terms of our good policies, various levels of plans (strategic, implementation, operational plans, etc.). Despite all these, service delivery challenges persist in the areas above. We therefore need to challenge

ourselves to be creative and embrace innovation as a critical approach to doing government business. Innovation enables us to stretch ourselves and think beyond the borders of our mandates to find integrated innovative solutions, be they prototypes, processes, systems, approaches, models, ICT or non-ICT devices.

Innovation is essentially a trump card that can yield the kind of new ways and solutions to deliver services to the public, instead of continuing with the old and often less effective practices.

In terms of the NDP, the role of innovation as a catalyst in ensuring an effective state machinery, is indisputable. However, innovation can only thrive in a permissive and supportive environment. This is true for us as a country at large where our competitiveness is dependent on a strong National System of Innovation (NSI) and it is equally true for a public sector that is solution-focused. Working together with strategic partners such as academia, industry, civil society and specifically our NSI, galvanises our efforts to optimise the impact of innovation.

We should all work tirelessly to champion innovation if anything, for its proven value in improving the lives of citizens throughout the length and breadth of South Africa.

Innovation is essentially a trump card that can yield the kind of new ways and solutions to deliver services to the public, instead of continuing with the old and often less effective practices.

We need to challenge ourselves to be creative and embrace innovation as a critical approach to doing government business.

8 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

MESSAGE FROM THE DEPUTY MINISTER

For us in the public sector, perhaps August is an ideal time to look beyond the rhetoric of service delivery, to peel through its many layers and nuances and to try to reach a deeper understanding of how the lack of many vital services affects women in their daily lives.

Our way of dealing with the subject of service delivery is almost always generic, superficial, disengaged and hardly reflective of the real implications of our inertia as public officials on the lives of citizens.

Bringing a gender perspective to issues of service delivery, can undoubtedly help enliven and perhaps add an experiential element to the whole notion of service delivery in our country. More than that, it could create a sense of urgency and subsequent guilt which is perhaps what is lacking in this regard.

As we speak about various challenges that the modern day society faces,

albeit poverty, unemployment, poor education, poor healthcare, etc., it is women, in particular as caregivers, grandmothers, mothers and daughters, who are always at the receiving end because of the inefficiencies in service delivery.

At the launch of the Gender Statistics in South Africa 2011 Report, Statistician General, Pali Lehohla, appropriately summarised the status of the women in the country saying: “Women experience far higher unemployment. They experience a far lower participation rate [in the economy]. If we take only the participation rate of men, then we would be having very low unemployment rates in South Africa. Even in death, the registration of women who have died is much lower compared to the registration of dead men. That happens because there is nothing to inherit from a woman and a lot to inherit from a man.”

This report goes on to provide a

comprehensive statistical profile of the population of South Africa as it was obtained then. Amongst others, it highlights that: • At least 32.4% of the population

was living under the food poverty line, set at R305 per individual per month. Most were women.

• Unemployment is more prominent amongst women. The unemployment rate of women was 2.9% higher than the national average which was 24.9%.

• 29% of households did not have piped water inside their dwelling or on site. The reality in South Africa is that where water must be fetched, female members of the household are most likely to be responsible for this task, as compared to their male counterparts.

• More women aged 25 years and above (12%) did not have any formal schooling compared to the (9%) proportion of men.

• More males (47.4%) than females (34.6%), were employed which

PUTTING SERVICE DELIVERY INTO PERSPECTIVE – REFLECTING ON THE PLIGHT OF WOMEN

Bringing a gender perspective to issues of service delivery, can undoubtedly help enliven and perhaps add an experiential element to the whole notion of service delivery in our country.

August is the National Women’s Month in South Africa. This is an important month on the South African calendar because it affords us an opportunity to highlight issues that affect women in particular.

By Hon. Ayanda Dlodlo, MP, Deputy Minister for Public Service and Administration


basically means that women are more likely than men to be unemployed.

We cannot dispute the presence of a deep-seated gender bias in the distribution of services in our society and how it insidiously eats at the core of our well-being as citizens. This is the reality of our people and we should remember that service delivery can never be divorced from it.

We should be mindful of the fact that innovation, which is widely considered as the backbone of service delivery improvement, can never take place in a vacuum. Innovation has to serve a particular purpose, to be a magic wand that enables government institutions to work smartly, flexibly and with agility to make a difference where it matters most. Importantly innovation should translate into tangible, life-saving

services for all our people, regardless of their geographical location, socio-economic status and gender.

Since the dawn of democracy South Africa has made considerable strides in addressing gender inequality. Various government initiatives have been put in place to empower women in spheres such as politics, education, access to jobs, etc.

We have successfully adjusted the net enrollment rate in primary schooling to 98,9% amongst girl children and 99,2% amongst boy children. We are therefore more likely to meet target 3 of MDG 2 to ensure that all children, regardless of gender, will be able to complete a full course of primary school.

However, the fight for gender equality remains a challenge in South Africa

as women still lag behind in many key vital areas, such as achieving a more equitable and non-gendered division of labour, achieving equitable employment access for men and women and addressing gender-based violence on all fronts.

My sincere appeal, particularly as we celebrate 20 years of democracy is that henceforth, we need to think differently and outside the proverbial box and start looking at our role in service delivery, not ordinarily as a job to earn a salary. Instead we need to graduate to a more mature level where we take ownership and show commitment to this life-changing calling.

Said Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change you wish to see in the world”.

We need to graduate to a more mature level where we take ownership of service delivery and show commitment to this life-changing calling.

Deputy Minister Dlodlo, co-chair of the Open Government Partnership Steering Committee, with other steering committee menbers, receiving the 2014 Commitment to Development Award.

10 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

FROM THE CEO’S DESK

The bottom-line is that tackling service delivery challenges of an evolving modern day citizenry, equally requires appropriate dynamic solutions from innovative minds.

Therefore, critically, innovation should be treated as a touchstone for public sector transformation. In that way, we will be assured that our public sector will always be on course to effectively deliver on the key priority areas in accordance with its developmental agenda.

Looking at the public sector, one is convinced that there is much going on by way of entrenching the culture of innovation. Through the on-going work of the CPSI to drive the innovation agenda to improve service delivery in the public sector, innovation has become something of a mantra that many of us in the public sector are pursuing in our operations.

It starts, for instance, with the requests that the CPSI receives from various

state institutions across the three spheres, for support as they run their programmes aimed at encouraging, recognising and rewarding innovative projects and solutions that improve the delivery of services to citizens.

The spark of innovation that the Centre for Public Service Innovation once lit and continues to tend, is certainly growing to put our country on the correct developmental course. Most humbling are the many high quality projects that we receive from across the length and breadth of our country as entries to the CPSI Awards. These projects contribute immensely towards the promise of a better life for all citizens.

All these things are indicative of the extent to which the public sector has bought into innovation and the realisation of how it can transform government capacity to deliver services effectively and achieve good governance. In addition, they are indicative of a public service that is

hard at work to reinvent itself into government machinery that is able to exploit the various opportunities in innovation to meet the diverse needs of citizens.

However, the one area that is critical to the successful entrenchment of innovation in its totality, wherein we need to intensify our efforts, is the encouragement of dialogue(s) on the subject. Along this journey of self-reinvention to enhance its innovative capacity, it is critical that the public sector maintains and encourages discourse around innovation, to continue to share and learn from the positive gains that we have realised, as well as the pitfalls along the way. Using our various platforms such as the Annual Public Sector Conference, it becomes increasingly critical that we engage honestly and frankly without glossing over issues.

We need to continue to engage in how we can effectively find ways of stimulating and growing innovation as

By Thuli Radebe, CEO, CPSI

TACKLING THE DARK UNDERBELLY OF INNOVATION

innovation should be treated as a touchstone for public sector transformation.

11VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

part of public sector transformation. While the existence or non-existence of an environment suitable for innovation in the public sector appears to have been belaboured, we cannot ignore its recurrence in debates in our various forums. People raise concerns about leadership challenges, bureaucracy, and the shackles imposed upon them by our regulatory frameworks. Leadership is undeniably critical in driving innovation. Well-defined processes and systems cannot create innovation. They can only go so far as supporting it. The responsibility to create and drive innovation lies squarely on leadership.

How do we, for instance, tackle the issue of incentivising innovation in the public sector the same way as it happens in the private sector? We know that the two sectors are like chalk and cheese, the one being profit–driven, while the other is about public

good and relies on public funds. As much as the concern continues to rear its head given the opportunity, we should similarly continue to encourage innovative thinking around alternatives to monetary incentives that would be suitable for the public sector, such as study opportunities.

We need to continue to boldly confront and iron out the dark underbelly issues of innovation. To ignore these issues, could stave our efforts to encourage innovation.

Innovation is a critical aspect and a key priority in all the reform initiatives to transform the public sector into a professional, disciplined, high-performing and compliant government machinery. Whether in the form of cutting-edge ICT multi-channel solutions stemming from cross-sectoral partnerships; and/or policies and strategies that are borne

out of imaginative and visionary public sector leadership with foresight; and/or the benefit of practical experience shaped by day-to-day struggles of the ordinary village communities; innovation will always determine which side of the track we stand as a nation. Are we a regressive nation that is stuck in its obsolete, anti-development ways, or a progressive nation that takes advantage of the available technologies and even dares to go beyond the ordinary to achieve socio-economic sustainable development?

Our fate lies squarely in our own hands.

Most humbling are the many high quality projects that we receive from across the length and breadth of our country.

Innovation is a critical aspect and a key priority in all the reform initiatives to transform the public sector into a professional, disciplined, high-performing and compliant government machinery.

12 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

PUBLIC SECTOR INNOVATIONS

THE DTI CFO HELP DESK

The CFO Help Desk is one of the projects recognised by the Centre for Public Service Innovation at the 2013 Public Sector Innovation Awards.

By Anton van der Merwe

Some South African Government institutions have to contend with challenges that emanate from administrative inefficiencies such as financial management. In order to address such inefficiencies the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) introduced the CFO Help Desk.

The Financial Management Unit within the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) used a third party system within the unit that could provide broader support to staff with enquiries, including IT-related issues. This system was then replicated for use by Finance and Supply Chain Management units within the dti and numerous benefits were realised.

Problem

Prior to the implementation of the Project, the dti experienced significant challenges in the payment of invoices to its creditors as stipulated by the National Treasury regulations. In addition, the same challenges were experienced with payments. These challenges made it impossible to

comply with the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).

In the absence of a case management system, payment turnaround times could not be determined with accuracy as the receipt dates of invoices and claims were not recorded. This also prevented the prioritisation of payments on a “first in, first out” basis.

Similarly, the absence of a single point of entry for invoices and claims impeded on response handling when enquiries were received about outstanding payments, as it was difficult to determine the whereabouts of invoices and claims. Invoices and claims also got lost or were misplaced, resulting in customer dissatisfaction.

Furthermore, staff morale and productivity were also affected, given the nature and frequency of customer enquiries, and the time spent on retrieval of invoices and claims.

The Innovation

The CFO Help Desk initiative is a

computerised case management solution used to ensure service delivery to external and internal customers. The main features that make the system uniquely innovative, include its ability to cater for all financial and SCM transactions. This would include provision for the different business processes.

It further addresses the legislative requirements of the PFMA, as well as service delivery targets within a single system, and in a cost-effective manner. The system also benefits both internal (staff) and external customers (creditors, claimants and other departments).

The system is also able to report on response handling per transaction category types, and per individual users, to track response handling and transaction volumes, and enabling customers to provide feedback on the current status of processing.

Implementation

The implementation of the solution was as follows:

13VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

Step 1: Finalisation of user specificationsThis activity included the identification, analysis and documentation of all Finance and SCM processes to populate the CFO Help Desk database. This was crucial to ensure that the system would handle all Finance and SCM transactions. It included the setting of reasonable process turnaround times per transaction type. These informed system processes such as the generation of early warning and violation notices to users and supervisors via e-mails.

Step 2: Setting up of user profilesUser profiles were determined and created for all staff, in accordance with the processes and tasks that they are responsible for.

Step 3: Customisation of the systemThe aforementioned information was loaded to the system, whilst the system parameters were set according to the various process turnaround times.

Step 4: Testing and pilotingThe system was piloted to test the various functional areas of the system and adjustments were made where required. This was in preparation for the full implementation of the solution.

Step 5: User training

Finance and SCM staff members were trained to use the system, including a system controller who would be responsible for system maintenance and obtaining management reports, and two operators who are responsible for the receipt and recording of all transactions.

Step 6: “Going live”The status of the system changed to a production database and users (staff) used it exclusively for case management purposes.

Resources, Tools and Procedures

The resources, tools and procedures that informed the design and subsequent implementation, were:

• Documented process flows for all Finance and SCM processes (approximately 80 process flows);

• Turnaround times for each process, based on legislative requirements and acceptable industry standards;

• Integration and links between the various processes;

• Existing and required knowledge and competencies of staff, and

• Existing functionality of the system and its software.

Access to the third party software on

the departmental server was obtained as well as additional user licenses.Costs associated with the CFO Help Desk were thus limited to the additional licenses because the software was already procured and used by the OCIO. The additional licenses for the 40 users of the system, amounted to R130 000 per annum.

Regarding human resource costs, only the costs of operators could directly be attributed to the CFO Help Desk, which is approximately R300 000 per annum.

Management support

The involvement and support by senior management resulted in an appropriate and all inclusive solution for the case management requirements of the dti with emphasis on the functionality design, funding and implementation of the system. The ongoing support for the operations of the system, and the use of management reports derived from the system, ensure value for money and staff commitment towards the objectives of the CFO Help Desk.

Benefits

Improved turnaround times The average turnaround time for the processing of creditor invoices improved from 39 days to 21 days, well

The average turnaround time for the processing of creditor invoices improved from 39 days to 21 days, well in advance of the legal requirement of 30 days. 85% of the transactions are finalised within 10 days of receipt.

Enhanced financial management, transaction processing and the optimal utilisation of resources improved productivity and efficiency.

14 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

in advance of the legal requirement of 30 days. 85% of the transactions are actually finalised within 10 days of receipt. Incentives and staff claims are processed and paid within 21 days and 7 days respectively, thus exceeding legal requirements.

Tracking of finance and SCM transactionsThe system’s functionality enables financial management to track the processing and finalisation of all financial and SCM transactions. The latest status of any specific transaction can immediately be determined, which is of great value with the handling of enquiries. The system further provides for e-mail notifications on transactions that reached or exceeded 75% of their allowed processing turnaround times.

Customer satisfactionThe ability to pay invoices and claims within the 30 day legal requirement and to immediately finalise telephonic and e-mail enquiries, contribute substantially towards customer satisfaction.

Challenges and risk management

Risks associated with the implementation and use of the CFO Help Desk were mitigated by means of proper planning and training, and hence were limited to a large extent

and were as follows:

CustomisationProblems experienced related mainly to the customisation of the existing case management software. This risk was mitigated with the initial review of processes and turnaround times, the determination of functional specifications and the piloting.

Change managementCertain staff members were reluctant to change from a manual process to a computer-based system. This challenge was mainly resolved through presentations on and demonstrations of the system’s processes and features, and was complemented with structured training in the use of the system.

Replication and dissemination

The National Treasury and the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation recognised the good performance of the dti in terms of its payment turnaround times, and the systems and processes it used to achieve this. During 2012, National Treasury recommended that national departments and provinces should consider the system for possible use.

The following departments and public entities expressed interest in implementing a case management

system similar to the CFO Help Desk system of the dti, based on the recommendation by the National Treasury:• The North-West Province• The Economic Development

Department (EDD) • The Department of Public Service

and Administration (DPSA)• The Department of International

Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO)

• The Department of Environmental Affairs

• The Companies Tribunal

Conclusion

The introduction of the system resulted in a paradigm shift in the handling of transactions. It facilitated access to information that informed decision-making and accurate reporting. Enhanced financial management, transaction processing and the optimal utilisation of resources improved productivity and efficiency.

The CFO Help Desk was developed and implemented with success, and is updated on an on-going basis according to the latest policy requirements. As such, there is no need to “redesign the wheel”, and as such other departments are welcome to consider using the same to achieve the same positive outcome.

The introduction of the system resulted in a paradigm shift in the handling of transactions. It facilitated access to information that informed decision-making and accurate reporting.

National Treasury recommended that national departments and provinces should consider the system for possible use.

Your health and that of your family is your most precious asset. That is why the monthly amount you contribute towards your healthcare cover is one of the most important investments you will ever make. But, are you always getting the very best value for money when it comes to healthcare services, and more specifically, healthcare benefits?

If you are a government employee and have not yet made the move to the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) you are missing out on an important staff benefit. With approximately 1,85 million covered lives, GEMS has enjoyed unprecedented growth year after year precisely because we offer good value, great benefits and accessibility.

When choosing a medical scheme, consider the following points in order to make the most of your medical scheme benefits:

1. How affordable is your medical scheme? Sometimes cost alone will determine what option and which scheme you can afford to belong to. However, when comparing the different costs of medical schemes always ensure that you are comparing apples with apples and that you take into account all the necessary benefits. And remember, it is always better to choose the cover that is most appropriate to meet your needs and your pocket.

GEMS has always made an effort to deliver the finest possible healthcare benefits at the most affordable rates to its members. The benefit plans on offer from GEMS are on average between 10% and 25% less expensive and are often also better than those on offer from most other medical schemes.

3. Are you getting true value for money from your medical scheme? Always enquire what the average scheme increases were over the past five years. Check if benefits were decreased or increased as some schemes may well reduce benefits while increasing contribution. At GEMS the average contribution rate increase has always been lower than the industry average while benefits are enhanced year after year.

4. How does your medical scheme square up in terms of benefits? You should check what you are covered for and which waiting periods are applicable to you. At GEMS there are no waiting periods. Remember, schemes do place limitations on hospitalisation and that is why you should check that the benefits offered will meet your specific requirements.

5. How accessible is your medical scheme? Despite its considerable size GEMS has remained close to its members by touching the lives of thousands of people each day.

Well over 11 000 members are contacting the GEMS call centre daily while at least 1 000 visit our regional walk-in centres around South Africa. As many as 90% of GEMS members are now located within 10 kilometres of a GEMS healthcare network provider.

6. How well do you understand your benefits? Make sure you understand your medical scheme and its different benefit options. Read the m embership guide and brochures and familiarise yourself with the scheme rules. If you do not understand certain of the benefits or rules insist on a comprehensive explanation. And remember, the membership guide will not only give you important information regarding

general procedures to be followed, but also very specific information regarding the extent of medical cover available to you.

7. How innovative is your medical scheme? GEMS is known for its unrivalled innovation and ability to design and implement benefits and services that meet and exceed the needs of its members.

8. Does your medical scheme ‘know it all’? Despite the many successes achieved by GEMS, the management of the Scheme knows all too well that they cannot sit back and rest on their laurels. In so doing, the key focus of GEMS is on providing members with “Access to excellent healthcare that is both affordable and administratively efficient”.

9. Does your medical scheme listen and act on the suggestions of its members? At GEMS complete regular surveys are undertaken in order to assess service and to research the opinions of individual government departments, members and service providers. The needs and requirements of members are of the utmost importance to the Scheme and feedback is always appreciated and acted upon. For example, there is a dedicated ‘suggestion’ email address ([email protected]), which gives members an efficient avenue to communicate their suggestions to the Scheme. Many excellent ideas are received and implemented in the process.

10. Is your medical scheme financially sound? GEMS has always been financially sound but 2013 was a

particularly good year with the Scheme almost doubling its reserves to reach R1.2 billion. This meant that solvency levels increased substantially from 7.9% to 11,6%. Income derived from contribution income increased by almost 16% to R24.3 billion while expenditure on claims increased only by 10% to R21.7 billion.

At 7.6%, the non-healthcare expenditure of GEMS remains half the industry average which means that the lion’s share of our member contributions are used to the benefit of members, which is exactly as it should be.

GEMS offers excellent healthcare services and highly specialised healthcare programmes aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of its members. The Scheme is focused on making the medical scheme experience of every member a pleasurable and memorable one. After all, isn’t that not what you expect from your medical scheme?

Looking for a medical scheme that has your health at heart?

With GEMS every member matters and it shows

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16 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

The City of Johannesburg was first introduced to the Bus Rapid Transit at a South African Transport conference held in 2006 through a video from Brazil, Curitiba, termed “making things happen with BRT”. This video opened doors for the City to explore the concept of the BRT, firstly because it had the potential to be implemented in a short time frame, and when compared to other modes of mass transit for developing countries, cities in particular, it was more affordable – particularly where cities were grappling with many development issues simultaneously.

Background and problem statement

From the 1950s the City’s strong civil engineering skills lent themselves to build wide roads and freeways for a car-based transport system, without much thought given to how the hundreds of thousands of working class residents without cars, often black, would be able to move efficiently from A to B, and not in a circuitous way.

Under pre-democracy policies, the City of Johannesburg grew and developed in accordance with a spatial framework that controlled how people lived, worked and moved around. Two-

1999, road traffic in Johannesburg doubled and many business nodes and suburbs remained unlinked to any kind of public transport.

The issue of the City unapologetically taking space from private cars and dedicating space to public transport is the loudest pro-poor statement that any city can make. It is against this backdrop that the groundwork was laid for the introduction of the BRT system.

Objectives of the Rea Vaya BRT Project

The City of Johannesburg has a 2030 Vision and Growth and Development Strategy. In respect of transport, the vision is “A safe and efficient transportation system, with a public transport focus, that will support a world class city, connecting businesses, people and places in a sustainable and cost effective manner and through this, improve the standard of living and quality of life of all the city’s inhabitants and the overall competitiveness and growth of the city’s economy”.

The Rea Vaya BRT is a key catalytic programme to achieve the above. Its objectives are:

thirds of Johannesburg’s residents, black, Indians and Coloured who were among the lowest paid and unable to afford cars, were forced to live in areas furthest from their workplaces and from transport networks. As Johannesburg evolved, and became more dispersed, commuting became more difficult and diverse.

In order to fill the void of transport for people in townships, the mini-bus taxi industry developed as one of the options to fill the void in public transport options for the majority of commuters who lived in racially divided townships far from workplaces.

In 2003 the City of Johannesburg’s integrated transport plan indicated that 72% of public transport at the time in the City was being provided by minibuses or taxis, 14% by rail and 9% by bus. Sixty-three percent of the population did not own cars. This meant that government had not provided adequately for the mass transit needs of the majority of the people.

In 2006, the average time a person spent travelling using one taxi was approximately 50 minutes for a single trip, and the average cost of public transport was R186 per commuter per month. In just five years from 1994 to


THE REA VAYA BUS RAPID TRANSIT (BRT) PROJECT

By Zarina Goondiwala, Knowledge Manager Scheduled Services Business Unit (Rea Vaya BRT Project Office), City of Johannesburg Transport Department

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• To provide safe reliable and affordable public transport and become a catalyst for integrated public transport as the mode of choice in addition to walking and cycling;

• To enable spatial restructuring including addressing the legacy of apartheid which resulted in a racially divided and fragmented City and contributing to a more compact City organised along transit orientated corridors and nodes.

• To achieve broad based black economic empowerment and job creation through high labour intensive construction and incorporating incumbent operators that have operated the BRT proposed routes over many years as partners in a long-term, sustainable system that provides them with prosperity and sustainability;

• To contribute to building social cohesion and reducing social

system• Accessible public transport for

people with disability, mothers with children, the elderly etc.

• A decrease in traffic congestion, energy consumption and vehicle emissions;

• An enhanced urban environment; • Job creation and income

generating opportunities

Also envisaged, were a number of medium to long term benefits which included containment of urban sprawl and increased densification and transit orientated development; the promotion of social inclusion and equality through the provision of a single standard public transport system for all and economic development in and around the areas of operation of BRT.

The Innovation The strategic value of BRT systems, and Rea Vaya in particular, lies in that it employs many technical aspects of

inequality; and• To reduce air pollution and carbon

emissions through the removal of existing fleet, reducing private car use and introducing low carbon emission vehicles.

At the inception of the Rea Vaya BRT project, there was an additional objective to meet the obligations of Johannesburg as the host city for the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup as the FIFA contracts required to provide clean, safe and working transport during the 23 matches played in the city. This was achieved.

Linked to these objectives, the City envisaged a number of short and long term benefits to its residents which influenced how the BRT was planned and implemented. The short term benefits included:• Efficient, reliable and frequent

public transport services• Affordable fares• A safe and secure public transport

18 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

a centralised, rail-based mass transit system. By working with buses on dedicated exclusive roadways, BRT is designed to feed into a high-volume trunk service.

Using state-of-the-art stations designed to enhance easy access and quick boarding, commuters receive the benefits of rail in a BRT system. The system offers specific technical aspects, which together make it a unique and highly efficient mode of transport. All Rea Vaya buses are of a high-floor (940mm road surface) design with access to stations level with the floor height of the bus. The 18m articulated buses have three boarding doors and 13m feeder buses have two which allows for a larger number of passengers to get on and off more quickly.

The BRT stations also contribute to the uniqueness of the system. All stations are fitted with electrically operated doors which are opened by the bus drivers when they dock at the station. Stations are designed to make use of natural light and ventilation. Their modular design means that modules, which are built off-site and assembled on-site, can be erected in six weeks, allowing for rapid expansion of BRT. Stations are accessible from both sides to accommodate the two-way flow of passengers. Access to stations is controlled by access gates opened when a passenger swipes his/her EMV-based smart card at the gates.

Buses purchased have very low emissions. In the next phase, buses will be purchased which use a combination

creation of the routes has assisted with the goal of greater social cohesion by bringing Soweto closer to the CBD. It assists people in avoiding inefficiencies which have often entailed two taxis for one journey. The BRT stations have created a visual impact that improves the City landscape, and allowed the City to guide investment along transport corridors. Ridership is a key factor in indicating the impact of BRT.

Ridership began at about 630 000 and now reaches 1.1 million passengers per month. Ticket revenue ranges from R4.3 to R6.5 million per month.

Phase 1B will assist in bringing economic efficiencies to help BRT reach ridership targets as an overall system, as the expanded routing will provide more options to a wider audience of passengers regarding safety. The current BRT system estimate puts the rate of accidents at four per 100 000 km travelled. The CBD accident level is higher due to traffic and pedestrian densities, at 12 per 100 000 km.

During 2011 Piotrans recorded 227 incidences, of which 210 were damage to the bus only (scratches and minor damage) and 17 were accidents; there were two deaths. In the same period 4.8 million km were operated, providing a rate of 4.7 accidents for every 100 000 kilometres. The injury rate was 0.35 per 100 000 km. These numbers are on par with public transport systems throughout the world and indicate the BRT’s status as a world-class public transport system in terms of safety.

In terms of formal employment

of diesel and biogas. The Rea Vaya BRT has the most advanced public transport management system in South Africa and one of the most advanced automatic fare collection system in the world. Fare top-ups are available at all stations. Stations are staffed by an ambassador, cashiers security and cleaning personnel as well as marshals to assist passengers. Passengers are advised of bus arrival times on variable message screens.

Project Impact

The impact of the Rea Vaya BRT can be measured in many ways. The BRT has had a direct impact on the lives of those passengers who take the BRT buses each day. Passengers are safer whilst bus drivers and other former taxi drivers are now in formalised employment systems. It has improved commuting time into the Inner City, though this also means buses are more crowded at peak periods.

The system is affordable, reliable, and provides a clean, quality transport service for commuters.

The BRT as a business contributes to the City’s revenues from fares to offset operational costs. It has improved the environment by reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the City. This is because when the project was implemented, 585 minibus taxis were removed from the road and replaced with 143 energy-efficient and green buses.

Yet the greatest impact of BRT lies in its strategic role in public transport. The

In terms of formal employment creation, about 600 taxi drivers were absorbed as drivers and in other positions at the stations. The Rea Vaya system employs a total of 787 people and 15 047 construction jobs were created to build the infrastructure.

19VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

creation, about 600 taxi drivers were absorbed as drivers and in other positions at the stations. The Rea Vaya system employs a total of 787 people and 15 047 construction jobs were created to build the infrastructure.

Members currently in formal employment have seen a significant improvement in earnings, with a system total of R38 million. By being part of companies with formal working conditions they receive benefits such as insurance, pensions and medical aid.

A private company was created with taxi owners as shareholders. The system thus absorbed informal operators running cash businesses that were not tax and audit compliant and converted them into a company with assets of R300 million and a contract turnover of R100 million per year.

Challenges and Lessons

Large-scale public transport networks are complex and expensive. In the early stages of the BRT, few envisioned that it would roll-out in the way it did, or that it would involve the level of complexities that it encountered. Teams were making do with the information they had on hand, given the best expert

advice they could get.

However, not all factors were known at the time of implementing the project.One critical cost factor was the reconstruction of roads to meet the specifications for heavier axle-load BRT buses which are in use throughout the world. These buses have their own specifications, some of which cause operational difficulties. For brake testing, for instance, there is only one centre in Gauteng, resulting all buses having to travel to this location.

Most importantly, early in the cost-factor planning was the need to switch all the roads over to a BRT-specific paving. The cost to convert the roads to this layered tar paving was significant. Some work had already been done according to the SPTN specifications, and all these roadways had to be redone.

Learnings from the city of Santiago showed that not to redo the roads was a mistake. Santiago built the BRT and did not redo the roads, and within two years they started falling apart. In the end they had to close the roads to replace the surface completely, and the system was closed for a year.

Momentum, political will and political champions was a success factor as it had the support of the Executive Mayor and councillors.

Creating a transformation model with stakeholders such as the taxi industry was an important factor and will be to ensure future BRT success. Johannesburg is the first city in South Africa and in Africa to negotiate an agreement with its informal taxi industry. Countries from all over Africa now come to the City to understand how this was negotiated and how it is working.

Conclusion

The BRT system is a fully integrated system that marks the implementation of integrated public transport systems in the City of Johannesburg. Today it carries one million people per month and is changing the shape of transport and landscape in the City.

Implementing the BRT has been a multi-faceted, complex national project that has taken several years of dedication, commitment and effort, providing great rewards and challenges for the City and its citizens.

We cover, compensate and rehabilitate road accident victims.You can come directly to us.

Using state-of-the-art stations designed to enhance easy access and quick boarding, commuters receive the benefits of rail in a BRT system.

20 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

United Nations Public Administration NetworkUNPAN

GLOBAL PORTAL AT THE SERVICE OFALL COUNTRIES

21VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

The mission of the United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN) is to promote capacity-building through cooperation and the sharing of knowledge, experiences and best practices of sound public policies and effective public administration globally, through means of informa-tion and communication technologies (ICTs) among the Member States of the United Nations.

Consisting of over 20 partner institutions covering five global regions, UNPAN is managed by the Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM), United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), in close partnership with a group of international, regional and sub-regional institutions devoted to public administration in the context of social and economic development.

Scan here with your smartphone/device

Or visit www.unpan.org

Division for Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM)

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA)

+1 212 963 2764 | [email protected]

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

















22 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

Background

The South African Constitution recognises the universal right of access to services such as water and sanitation. However, millions of South Africans still live without access to this basic necessity. Informal housing settlement residents in the Durban area for a long time did not have any hope of having access to formal water and sanitation services until the City of eThekwini came up with their award-winning innovation, Communal Ablution Blocks (CABs).

The Problem

The densely built informal settlements posed a multiplicity of challenges to residents. They did not allow for sufficient space for full sanitation services and this made residents vulnerable to water-borne diseases, having to use home-made pit latrines. Women and children were more exposed to crime as they had to walk

and job opportunities to the residents of informal settlements.

Known as the Communal Ablution Blocks, the solution was in the form of modified shipping containers, each with two showers with doors for privacy, two flush toilets with doors, two hand basins, and a small locked storeroom for cleaning materials. In addition, the containers used by men have two fitted urinals. Attached to the outside of each container are four basins used for washing clothes. Lighting is provided at night and improves the safety of users, particularly women and children.

Importantly, the CABs are connected to the municipal sewerage and water systems and are provided on 350 sites in informal settlements in pairs - one for women and one for men.

However, while most of the washing was done at the CABs, grey-water runoff was not completely eliminated as people

long distances in poorly lit areas to obtain water or use toilets. There was also a high risk of environmental pollution due to open defecation and grey-water runoff, which occurs when there is no waste water and sanitation system in place.

About 350 informal housing settlements in Durban, which is home to approximately 1 million people, did not have access to water and sanitation services. What further complicated the issue is that as the area is also a site for the formal re-housing programme, whatever solution that would be introduced to provide full water and sanitation services, had to be of a temporary nature until residents are relocated to fully serviced houses.

The Innovation

The eThekwini Municipality designed an effective temporary solution to address this problem. The solution had two objectives, mainly to provide sanitation and water services as well as skills training


COMMUNAL ABLUTION BLOCKS FOR INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS

By Teddy Gounden, eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality Water and Sanitation Services

There was also a high risk of environmental pollution due to open defecation and grey water runoff, which occurs when there is no waste-water and sanitation system in place.

23VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

used water for other purposes in the dwellings. To address this potential health hazard, a vertical garden was designed and piloted to fit in small places so that grey-water could filter directly to the roots of vegetables. The vertical food gardens provide vegetables to poor families.

The construction of the CABs also generated employment as people from the community were employed to assist in the installation process. These labourers acquired building skills, which they could apply in future job opportunities. Caretakers were assigned to manage the CABs and ensure that consumables such as soap and toilet paper are readily available. The employment of female caretakers provides jobs for women in these marginalised communities.

Implementation of the solution

The municipality’s Health, Housing, Water and Sanitation (EWS) and Architecture departments met and discussed how to address the challenge of lack of access to water and sanitation amongst informal settlement dwellers around Durban. They jointly came up with the CABs concept.

Implemented in 2004, the Health Department assumed overall responsibility for managing the programme, as they were mandated to roll out sanitation services in the Metro.

24 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

In 2009, EWS took over responsibility of the programme and the installation of the CABs from the Department of Health which did not have the technical skills to manage the large-scale roll-out, operations and maintenance of these facilities. Since then 350 CABs were installed. The plan was to ultimately roll out the CAB programme to all the transit camps in the Durban area (the informal settlements which are being upgraded).

A number of strategies were followed in implementing the CABs programme. These included: - obtaining community buy-in; - ensuring that the CABs were mobile; - establishing a municipal support team for ongoing maintenance, and - ensuring that the programme had a positive impact on the environment.

Residents can be ambivalent when receiving services. They can be excited, but also anxious at the same time because of the possibility of being excluded from the housing waiting list, this often resulting in vandalism and destruction of government property. To prevent this, EWS in partnership with Africa Ahead (NGO), established health clubs among the residents and conducted focus groups to determine what their needs were. Community buy-in was achieved in this way.

During 2010/2011 the The University of KwaZulu-Natal (UNKZN) conducted

surveys amongst the local residents to determine their levels of satisfaction with the CABs.

Stakeholders and key role-players

The main stakeholders and role-players in the implementation of the CABs programme included the eThekwini Municipality’s Housing, Architecture, Health, and Water and Sanitation Departments; Africa Ahead (NGO) for support to the health clubs and facilitated interaction between the residents; and Key of Hope (NGO) for the training and educating of local residents to manage the play areas and crèches.

The Expanded Public Works Programme funds the employment of 300 caretakers to assist with operations and maintenance of the CABs. The caretakers ensure that operations at the CABs run smoothly to prevent damage to the facilities. The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry’s Massification Grant provides ongoing regulatory support and funding. The Agricultural Management Unit (AMU) within the municipality is responsible for the establishment of the communal food gardens to assist with poverty alleviation in those areas where the CABs are located. The AMU also supports the crèches and play areas to ensure safe spaces for children. UKZN monitors and evaluates

the programme and undertook surveys in 2010 and 2011.

Resources used for the programme

The total budget for the project for the period of 2009 to 2013 is R350 million. The cost of one prefabricated container is R65 000 and the total cost of a pair of CABs, including transport, site preparation, operations and maintenance, hardware and software is in the region of R200 000. A Urine Division Toilet (UDT) and water supply to the houses in rural areas cost nearly R10 000 per unit or R1 million for 100 units. This is five times the cost of one CAB.

The fact that the EPWP provides the budget for caretaker salaries makes the operation and maintenance of the CABs far more cost-effective. EWS manages the CABs programme and coordinates all activities. Technical expertise and support was provided by the EWS engineering staff, while community liaison and education were provided by local ward councilors and NGOs respectively.

Sustainability and replicability

eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality committed to set aside funds on an annual basis until all informal settlements have received CABs. A succession plan is not required as the Municipality is committed to the ongoing sustainability

25VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

of the CABs through sound operation and maintenance. The key threat to the sustainability of the project is the withdrawal of the EPWP funding for the salaries of the caretakers who are of the utmost importance for the sustainability of the CABs. Thus alternative funding will be sought from the City Council or other government funds, such as the Job Fund.

The eThekwini Municipality is already replicating the project throughout the municipality. However, for other municipalities, potential constraints may arise such as skilled and experienced staff required for managing technical projects of this nature. The Municipality has to be financially stable to implement the initiative, including having the ability to carry costs until payment from government departments are received. Informal settlements of 100 dwellings or more would be the ideal size for a project of this nature.

Benefits from the Programme

The use of modified shipping containers as CABs allows for the rapid installation on land which is often steep and where space is limited. It also allows for the easy relocation of the CABs to other areas once new houses have been built. In comparison to brick CABs, building and maintenance costs are also reduced. A key factor is the use of materials that do not encourage vandalism and require reduced maintenance.

Three hundred and fifty CABs have been installed with 300 caretakers attending to the operation and cleaning requirements. Each CAB services 1 000 households, and an estimated 200 000 residents of informal settlements in Durban use them. Three thousand five hundred local labourers were trained and employed during the construction and also benefited from acquiring skills as local builders. The CABs have become social development hubs, with health clubs (HCs), crèches, the food gardens and play areas, tuck shops and telephone services.

Research by the Health Club facilitator, Africa Ahead, shows that the HC and CABs resulted in the development of a

strong sense of social cohesion within these communities, which had previously been lacking. During 2010 and 2011, UKZN conducted surveys to measure the effectiveness of the programme, assess customer satisfaction, and provide feedback to guide service delivery. The results highlight that 71,7% of the sample reported that the presence of sanitation facilities in their communities addressed their household needs. A high 82,2% of households stated that the CABs significantly improved their lives.

Reasons for dissatisfaction were analysed and fed back to the planning and design team. An original weakness of the project was the fact that the CABs were unhygienic, poorly maintained and subject to vandalism and theft. This was addressed through the introduction of the caretakers and the operation and support team as well as the use of plastic fittings and pipes.

Challenges

The CABs were unhygienic, poorly maintained and subject to vandalism and theft. Many community facilities began to fall into a state of disrepair immediately after the hand-over as no adequate operations and maintenance was in place. This was addressed through the introduction of a caretaker programme, which created employment for local residents. These individuals were assigned to manage and clean the CABs and ensure adequate supply of toilet paper and cleaning products. The caretakers were also responsible for the reporting of any blockages or breakages to the EWS for repairs.

Toilet paper is free to avoid high rates of toilet blockages due to the use of newspapers. An operation and maintenance team was established to ensure the smooth operation of the system at all times. It was also decided to install plastic fittings and pipes in order to minimise the rate of theft. Educational programmes were run to teach residents how to use the facilities effectively which would also eliminate unnecessary damages.

Lessons learnt

The key ingredient for the success of the programme is sound leadership, profound experience (often lacking in many municipalities) and a wealth of expertise. This combination of qualities is instrumental in enabling exploration of alternative solutions to service delivery challenges and accessing technical expertise and the funding available for necessary services.

The forging of solid partnerships with different institutions are of fundamental importance to build social cohesion in communities and enlisting their cooperation. eThekwini Metro outsources the targeting and training of the beneficiaries to Africa Ahead, thereby empowering residents to take ownership of the installation, maintenance and care of the CABs.

The project has created employment for residents of informal settlements and a sense of ownership, thus preventing the destruction of government property.

26 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

disadvantaged schools and affluent school, before 2008 the top 11% of schools, which were mostly in affluent areas, accounted for 71% of successful mathematics results. The 2009 Gauteng provincial Grade 12 pass rate was 34% for mathematics and 25% for physical science, with the vast majority of successful candidates coming from more affluent urban environments.

Learners, from the poorest communities were failing to meet the standard of the Senior Certificate. As a result they faced a challenge of gaining access to higher education, training and employment, resulting in a vicious cycle of youth unemployment and poverty.

The situation has been self-perpetuating. Schools in disadvantaged communities could not attract sufficient numbers of high quality teachers. Government could also not meet budgetary requirements to upgrade schools or to provide sufficient resources for the high number of learners needing support. Poor language proficiency resulted in the inability to meet curriculum standards while many learners faced serious learning challenges as a result of lack of nutrition.

In order to break this cycle, the

Background

In 1994 matric pass rate was about 40% among Black students. The new Government adopted a remedial approach to education which prioritised, amongst others, increasing access to education, establishing an equitable education system, redressing the imbalances of the past, establishing a new basis for quality and promoting system efficiencies.

Despite significant progress made, there are still major challenges in lifting the quality of education, particularly in poverty stricken communities and in the gateway school subjects such as mathematics and science. As a result, the focus of the new Government shifted towards resourcing ordinary public schools.

Problem Statement

Many schools in disadvantaged communities in Gauteng continue to face challenges such as inadequate teaching/learning resources, impossible teacher/learner ratios and inadequately supported teachers, particularly in gateway subjects.

The impact of these challenges is more prominent in the quality of matric results. For example, when comparing

SECONDARY SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMME (SSIP): A CASE OF GAUTENG DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

By Boy Ngobeni, Head: Gauteng Department of Education


27VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

Department needed to introduce drastic and urgent measures. This required a high-impact short-term intervention and a long-term strategy to sustain the improvement.

Secondary School Improvement Programme (SSIP) Model

In 2009, the executive management of the Department approved and also allocated a budget for a special intervention programme. This was to address the problem of poor learner achievement in key subjects in under-performing schools which could not achieve provincial average targets or minimum Grade 12 pass rate of 75%. Called the Secondary School Improvement Programme (SSIP), the programme was scheduled to start at the beginning of 2010. Its main objective was to achieve a significant sustained improvement in the quality of teaching and learning and a marked improvement in Gauteng’s Grade 12 pass rate in 10 identified subjects in priority schools.

A programme of supplementary tuition was developed and in 2013 already 385 high schools and 50 000 Grade 12 learners were involved. The supplementary tuition is offered in 10 subjects at Grade 12 level and runs during weekends throughout the school term and all school vacations, culminating in an intensive programme before the final end-of-year exams. All teaching and learning materials are centrally developed by experts, quality assured and approved.

The SSIP Model comprises of four pillars namely:

Pillar 1: Grade 12 Intervention

identifies high performing teachers as potential programme tutors. The Department further contracts the recommended tutors and sites and also makes logistical arrangements on other matters such as transport and printing services using standard cost-effective rates.

The Department of Education communicates the programme to all representative structures such as schools, school governing bodies and their umbrella associations, learners and learner representative bodies, parent bodies, teacher unions, community structures and other role players to obtain consensus on key issues such as dates, number of Grade 10, 11 and 12 learners, programme content, service providers and payment of tutors.

Assessment serves as a core element for planning and implementation of the SSIP. Achievement targets are set for each subject and each grade is measured on specific dates throughout the year.

Resources

FundingThe programme costs about R140 million annually. The bulk of the funding is allocated by the Gauteng Department of Education and this is supplemented by funding from private sector corporate social investment. Services are procured according to a fixed rate which is based on cost recovery plus a minimal margin.

TechnicalAll educational, logistical and technical resources and services are provided by the Department. The programme has 140 physical sites, most of which are public schools which are chosen as

Programme which is the response of the Department to consolidate and improve the Grade 12 pass rate to not less than 85%.

Pillar 2: Grade 10 and 11 Intervention Programme mainly focuses on improving the pass rates in subsequent years by improving quality of teaching and learning in current Grade 10 and 11 through study programmes and skills and development orientation.

Pillar 3: Teacher Training focuses on delivering an effective and well supported teacher training programme through standardised lesson plans and teaching resources.

Pillar 4: Grade 8 and 9 Mathematics Broadcast Programme is designed to stream live and recorded broadcasts into classrooms during the week. It is designed to develop the production and distribution of audio-visual mathematics resources from the departmental recording studio. It is designed to also provide weekly online assessments as well as live afternoon teacher training broadcasts. The programme has branched off from SSIP into a full independent project as part of the Department’s ICT in Education strategy.

The Strategic Approach of SSIP

The programme plan is approved annually and the budget is allocated accordingly. The Department uses innovative and non-conventional procedures in managing the project at various levels, e.g. head office, district and school levels. A team of selected district officials in each of Gauteng’s 15 education districts, sanctioned by GDE’s senior management, annually selects central programme venues and

A programme of supplementary tuition was developed and in 2013 already 385 high schools and 50 000 Grade 12 learners were involved.

28 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

they are centrally located and within easy reach. Services such as transport, printing and catering are outsourced to providers who agree to supply services at the fixed rate set by the Department.

HumanThe programme contracts about 4 000 tutors annually. The SSIP tutors are contracted on the basis of their track-record, with preference being given to filling posts for Grade 12. There are clear criteria for the recruitment of tutors to ensure a minimum level of competence.

A rate per session is proposed with each session being at least 90 minutes long. These are teachers who sign part-time contracts to work on weekends and during school holidays. There are site managers in each of the 140 sites. District office officials manage the programme sessions in their districts. Staff from the Department’s Curriculum, Quality Assurance, Intervention and Communications Directorates assist in monitoring programme implementation, but do this without compensation for the additional time spent on weekends. The Department has a dedicated programme office of 15 people tasked with management of the programme.

Guidelines for the recruitment and payment of staff involved in overnight monitoring and management of residential examination preparation camps, have been developed and distributed. Policy relating to additional work, applies. Each site is managed by a site manager. Only senior managers, who are full-time employees at the site, i.e. the school principal or deputy principal of that school, qualify to be contracted.

Project Impact

The gap between the under-performing schools and the schools in affluent areas has narrowed. Already, there is evidence showing that in 2010, only 65% priority schools achieved a Grade 12 pass rate which was below the provincial average, whereas in 2013 there were 81% priority schools that achieved pass rates of above 80% provincial average targets. The numbers of bachelor passes in SSIP schools have increased from 19% in 2010 to 25% in 2013. Thousands of learners from poverty-afflicted communities achieved levels of success that qualify them to enter higher education and training and which give them access to bursary funding and scholarships.

In mathematics the pass rate improved from 40% in 2011, to 61% in 2013. In Physical science, the pass rate improved from 41% in 2011, to 65% in 2013. There was a marked decline in the number of under-performing schools from 188 in 2009, to 19 in 2013.

The project has helped to improve communication between the Department of Education and community stakeholders. The programme led to the development of a provincial communication network that allows for quick and effective distribution of information through direct digital messaging and through local media. District offices now have relationships with local media and the faith-based community networks. This helps the Department to communicate with parents and learners.

Challenges

The main obstacles regarding the programme include poor attendance attributed to demotivated learners with the low levels of achievement, poor weather conditions and long distances that rural learners have to travel to central sites. A strong advocacy campaign targeting learners, parents and community structures, helps improve attendance each year.

In mathematics the pass rate improved from 40% in 2011, to 61% in 2013. In Physical science, the pass rate improved from 41% in 2011, to 65% in 2013. There was a marked decline in the number of under-performing schools from 188 in 2009, to 19 in 2013.

Mathematics Physical Science

2011 2012 2013 2011 2012 2013

Gr 12 Candidates 13 137 14 700 16 377 13 815 14 954 15 250

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Recruitment of competent tutors is another challenge. The programme identifies the best teachers in the province to serve as tutors in the programme. However, most of these teachers are employed in more affluent schools. Intervention by executive management to give priority to the SSIP intervention, helped to redirect these teachers.

Many of the district officials spent many hours of uncompensated time helping to manage the programme leading to staff burn-out. This causes a great strain on them during weekends and led to them being less than rested for the following week’s work. Mitigating factors include introduction of additional time off, while a series of non-cash incentives and rewards is implemented, supported by private sector donors.

Lessons Learnt

• It is possible to plan and implement large-scale educational interventions if it is preceded by careful planning, proper consultation and the involvement of a broad transversal team. Close management is needed to glue the parts together.

• It takes time and persistence to forge a unified, aligned and mutually supportive project team, particularly when the team is a large one (i.e. more than 70 people.)

• It is critical to achieve uniform success in all implementation sites, although it is not critical that this happens simultaneously. It must be possible to deploy resources and skills quickly to areas where the programme lags behind target.

• Political and executive support is

results. It is now embedded in the school routine and is supported by all roleplayers and stakeholders.

The situation in under-performing schools significantly changed and the pass rate in critical subjects increased in under-performing schools with the provincial Grade 12 pass rate improving each year for the three years that the programme has run. The SSIP initiative has evolved from being seen as a short-term intervention to becoming adopted as an element of conventional support for schools in disadvantaged communities. It is widely supported by all stakeholders and seen as one of the most impactful interventions in redressing the legacy of Apartheid. Thousands of learners from poverty-afflicted communities are now able to enter higher education and training and access to bursary funding and scholarships.

A number of non-SSIP schools in more affluent areas have already adapted the model for their own use. The Gauteng Department of Education has been approached by at least three other provinces with a view to learning how to adapt and implement the model in other parts of the country. The programme resources have been loaded onto the national Department of Basic Education’s website as a free resource.

crucial to success and to being able to unblock obstacles to progress. Continuous communications and consultation can pre-empt many potential obstacles. While there may be no visible benefit to the time invested in this, there are major gains in not having to deal with issues of inadequate support, miscommunication or non-alignment to goals.

• It is just as important to aim for implementation momentum in large-scale education programmes, as it is for long-term success. Momentum, i.e. the programme’s capacity to keep going according to plan without micro management, may be more important than short-term success.

• Innovation and creativity are important, as is persistence in the face of resistance to change, in systems where convention is deeply embedded. Fear of failure and distrust of innovation can be overcome by quick wins and by keeping focus on the mission.

• Large programmes with multiple sites need effective administration. Innovation and creativity do not reduce the need for proper basic administrative efficiency, transparency and accountability.

• Accountability and responsibility are critical to progress. Recognition and acknowledgment are critical to maintaining success.

Conclusion

The programme has run successfully since 2010. It has improved the quality of education in priority schools, both in terms of the overall pass rate of Grade 12 learners and in terms of the quality of the

The SSIP initiative has evolved from being seen as a short term intervention to becoming adopted as an element of conventional support for schools in disadvantaged communities.

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Almost everywhere you go in the country, rural hospitals have one major challenge, that of shortage of medical specialists such as neurosurgeons and radiologists. The consequences thereof, particularly when it comes to emergency cases, are of unimaginable proportion.

A case in point is that of kwaZulu-Natal where it was a common practice for emergency patients in need of specialist care such as ‘head trauma’ cases to be transported by an ambulance from hospitals in far-flung rural areas to Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital in Durban, often with dire consequences because of the long distance travelled. A solution had to be found, and it came in the form of the Tele-radiology project.

Objectives of the project

The project is in line with the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health’s Hospital Services goal to improve the quality

and efficiency of regional hospital services.

The goal of the Tele-radiology Programme is to provide and improve specialised radiological services in hospitals, especially in rural areas which do not have on-site support. It also seeks to improve clinical governance including clinical support and mentorship at lower level (district) hospitals through meaningful use of information communication technology.

The Innovation

The Tele-radiology project enables sending of emergency radiological images (computed tomography) electronically from a rural to a central hospital via ISDN or ADSL network instead of road transport as was the case before for immediate assessment by specialists in Durban.

The project has brought a great relief to communities from Amajuba,

Umzinyathi and Zululand Districts as they are able to receive specialised and emergency life-saving healthcare at their local hospital, close to where they live without unnecessarily being transferred to urban health centres like Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital ( IALCH).

The following hospitals are electronically linked to Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital:• Madadeni Hospital (450km north of

Durban)• Ngwelezana Hospital (170km north

of Durban)• Ladysmith Hospital (240km north of

Durban)• Greys Hospital (78km north of

Durban)• Stanger Hospital (73km north of

Durban), and • Port Shepston Hospital (120km

south of Durban).

This innovation has made specialised healthcare available to rural and

TELE-RADIOLOGY FOR IMPROVED HEALTH CARE ACCESSIBILITY

By Vincent Sikakane, Department of Health, KwaZulu-Natal


This innovation has made specialised healthcare available to rural and underserved areas of KwaZulu-Natal through meaningful use of ICTs.

31VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

underserved areas of KwaZulu-Natal through meaningful use of ICTs.

The Impact of the Project

The project has contributed towards improved clinical governance with young medical doctors receiving much needed clinical support and mentorship.

The biggest impact is on communities who receive specialised healthcare services from their local hospitals in the remote rural areas without unnecessarily travelling to Durban. Lives are saved, especially “head injury” patients due to immediate but remotely available specialised advice on the treatment and management of a patient.

The project has been continuously monitored and evaluated and fine-tuned to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the clinical processes. The department has established a component called Tele-health and Information Technology to advance and support the implementation of the programme. The programme has also been integrated as part of the Health Services Transformation Plan of the province which will ensure its growth and sustainability.

Conclusion

It is important to highlight a few challenges that were faced in the implementation of the project.

It emerged that, during certain occasions, ISDN lines can be slow in transmitting data. Another major setback in terms of connectivity involved cable theft. This resulted in some hospitals reverting to studies being copied onto DVD, which in turn had to be physically delivered by drivers to the radiology department at Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital.

However, over and above that, the Tele-radiology solution is a system that has the potential to transform healthcare in the country if replicated in all the provinces.

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The MPAT was developed in collaboration with other transversal policy departments, the OtPs and in consultation with the Auditor General of South Africa (AGSA) and Office of the Public Service Commission (OPSC). It is an adaptation of the Canadian Management Accountability Framework. The main aim of the tool is to provide the executive with monitoring information on the state of management practices and also to be used by senior management of departments to drive improvements .

The adoption of priority outcomes in 2010 highlighted that developing an efficient and effective public service is a critical requirement to enable government to achieve its service delivery outcomes and targets. In an address to Directors-General and Deputy Directors-General in April 2010, President Jacob Zuma challenged civil servants to “manage government differently” in order to improve government performance and service delivery. Improving the state of management practices across government is thus a priority and the MPAT system focuses on the monitoring of management practices within organisations.

Objectives

In 2010 Cabinet approved that the DPME design and pilot management performance assessments. This was informed by the 10 and 15 year reviews carried out by the Presidency, which emphasised that

implementation capacity is a key weakness in government. In June 2011, Cabinet approved the “Management Performance Assessment Framework” and for the DPME, with other transversal administrative departments and the Offices of the Premier, to undertake assessments on the quality of management practices.

The goals and objectives of MPAT are to improve management practices by establishing benchmarks for performance; establishing baseline performance of institutions; tracking improvements against the baseline performance; providing managers with useful information to inform improvement, catalysing improvements in management and encouraging all departments to implement improvements.

Given weaknesses in management and administration, MPAT has elevated the resolution of this as a strategic issue that should concern all executive authorities and accounting officers. Since many departments do fully comply and operate smartly MPAT facilitates a process of learning from each other through sharing case studies and good practices.

The Challenge Addressed by MPAT

In many areas service delivery failure can be attributed to weak management and administrative processes. Examples include

delivery of text books and medication on time and payment of suppliers within 30 days.

Improved management practices are key to efficient service delivery. A holistic picture of the quality of management practices within a department against common standards can provide information to management to inform improvements. It can further be used by transversal departments to provide support where it is most needed.

The Innovation

The MPAT system has created a database of knowledge and information across all national and provincial departments. This allows for sharing of good practices and collaboration with other government departments to minimise on reporting duplications.

It is a collaborative initiative with government departments that aims to strengthen and improve existing systems and performance in government. By undertaking self-assessments, senior management in a department is given an opportunity to ascertain the department’s strengths and weakness. The en result is that departments take ownership of the problems and commit to implement improvements.

THE MANAGEMENT OF PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENTS TOOL (MPAT)

By Vaneshree Perumal: Department of Planning Monitoring and Evaluation


33VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

Programme Impact

DPME has successfully rolled out three cycles of MPAT since 2011. In the latter two years, there has been 100 per cent participation by provincial and national departments. This trend in participation is indicative of departments’ willingness to enhance their management practices, thereby ultimately creating an enabling environment for service delivery.

Feedback from departments through case studies shows that departments value the MPAT process and the positive impact it has on improving service delivery. An analysis of the MPAT results also shows a correlation between better management practices (MPAT scores) and the achievement of their targets contained in Annual Performance Plans.

DPME, together with the Offices of the Premier (OtPs), and transversal policy departments have since 2011 been performing annual assessments of the quality of management practises in national and provincial departments. All national and provincial departments participated in the 2012 and 2013 assessments which allows for comparison. Noted improvements are evident from the 2012 results across most departments. In some areas of management however there has not been significant improvement.

Some management areas also show that the majority of departments are non-compliant with policy requirements. In these areas there is a need to review the policies.

Many departments have implemented improvement plans to address areas of weakness identified through MPAT. DPME, with the support of School of Governance at the University of the Witwatersrand, has identified and documented good practises in selected areas to assist departments to improve their practises in these areas.

Replicating MPAT

Building on the success of MPAT the DPME in collaboration with the DCoG, South African Cities Network (SACN), South African Local Government Association (SALGA), and the Provincial Departments responsible for Local Government developed the Local Government Management Improvement Model (LGMIM). The LGMIM is based on a proactive approach in support of achieving Outcome 9 “Responsive, accountable, effective and efficient developmental local government systems”. This is achieved by identifying and resolving institutional problems, thereby ensuring that municipalities meet minimum of norms and standards of good institutional performance.

Advice was also provided to national and provincial legislatures on adapting the tool to assess the management and administration of the legislature.

Further possibilities exist to customise the MPAT for different sectors. The method could be used to assess the management and governance of an education or health district it could even apply to an individual school or clinic.

Conclusion

MPAT’s primary purpose is to improve performance using standards to benchmark management practice. MPAT reporting induces accountability through the monitoring, review and improvement process. In this regard, MPAT operates as a catalyst for the identification of good practice, policy inconsistency, process misalignment, poor performance and innovation. Monitoring the quality of management compliance improves management performance by creating accountability.

MPAT 2013 shows that many departments meet the legal requirements for good management practice and a few departments, in each of the 31 standards assessed, work smartly. Departments that work smartly demonstrate that given leadership commitment to build a performance culture, continuous improvement is possible. MPAT is adding value to departments that use it to initiate organisational change and improvement.

34 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

The R.K. Khan Hospital Pharmacy Decongestion Project was started in January 2008 to help clear queues in the pharmacy patient waiting area where about 2 000 outpatients are served daily. A shortage of pharmacists exacerbates the problem whilst frustrating and agitating patients. Dissatisfied staff has to work extended hours on a daily basis to manage the workload which resulted in high staff turnover.

The Solution

The hospital pharmacy formed a partnership with community organisations such as Sri Sathya Sai Sudha Centre in Moorton and offers patients the choice of collecting their chronic medicines at a facility close to their homes.

The decision to use community centres made more sense because

their location is well known; they are generally on bus or taxi routes and they have adequate seating, parking and ablution facilities.

The hospital pharmacy now pre-dispenses chronic medication to these community based centres to issue medicines to patients. Patients only visit the hospital on their review dates, once every 6 months.

There are 13 such venues from which more than 15 000 patients currently collect medicines monthly.

Project Impact

The pharmacy waiting area has been successfully decongested. More than 15 000 patients who would visit the hospital monthly to collect their chronic medicines are now utilising these alternative collection points in the community. As these facilities

operate from 07h30 to 10h00 daily, patient delays are significantly less than what they used to be at the hospital. In most facilities the average delay is between 15 to 30 minutes. As a result, staff members have more time to counsel patients and to ensure that they know how to take their medicines as these venues offer a more relaxed and comfortable atmosphere.

In some venues, patients’ blood pressure and blood sugar is checked monthly despite the fact that they are on chronic medicines. This was not the case at the hospital pharmacy. In other venues, refreshments are provided to patients by community organisations.

There is also improved access to medicines for patients as the pharmacy staff travel to their community rather than them coming to the hospital. This benefits the patients as they save on time and transport costs and it benefits

R.K. KHAN HOSPITAL PHARMACY DECONGESTION PROJECT

By Brian Pillay, R.K. Khan Hospital, KwaZulu-Natal


More than 15 000 patients who would visit the hospital monthly to collect their chronic medicines are now utilising these alternative collection points in the community.

35VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

the institution as there is significantly reduced congestion.Patients are extremely happy with the service and complaints against the hospital pharmacy, which were high, are now virtually non-existent. This has resulted in improved working conditions for staff as the work environment is not as stressful as it used to be. This has enabled us to attract additional staff and thus further improved our productivity and overall service delivery.

By decongesting the hospital and keeping chronic patients away, we were able to re-organise and provide a better service to those acute patients that visit the hospital pharmacy. Waiting Time Surveys show that overall patient delays at the hospital pharmacy which were in excess of 4 hours have decreased significantly. The average delay at the moment in our outpatient area is about an hour with the maximum delay being in the region of 2 hours.

Prior to the project, patients were leaving the hospital well after 6pm daily. This impacted significantly on their safety as there were no taxis to transport them around this time and

some had to stay with relatives or at the hospital Casualty section and go home the next morning. With the smooth operation of the project, work is generally completed by 5pm daily, pharmacy has to stay open until the last patient is seen at Outpatient section and very often we have to wait for these patients to get to us after 16h30 as we are up to date with dispensing. The patients thus have adequate time to get the taxis to transport them home.

The initiative has also had a significant impact on the amount of overtime worked and the cost of overtime per month. Prior to the project, staff members were working until 6 pm. Now work is completed by 17h00 daily.

Sustainability

Staff members have been adequately trained in all aspects of the project to ensure that it is sustained. They need to ensure that all chronic patients are referred to a community based centre for collection of chronic medicines.The pharmacy staff have also received support with dispensing from Esplamed Pharmacy, a chronic medicine dispensing unit within

the Department of Health. They are currently dispensing for 3 facilities and also assisted with dispensing for the pilot project involving the 3 private pharmacies.

Challenges

Initially, there was resistance from some patients were reluctant to be transferred from the hospital where they had always collected their medicines to any other facility. Their fears were allayed by constantly explaining to them the benefits of the outreach centres and assuring them that all their medicines will be issued and on time.

Another major challenge involved patients defaulting and not collecting medicines on their scheduled dates. As a solution, such patients receive counselling on the importance of compliance. “Defaulter” stickers are placed on their prescriptions as a caution about the defaulting tendency.

Venues such as community halls are sometimes double-booked for different events such as pension payouts. This is prevented by obtaining a schedule from the municipal office of the pension

36 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

payout dates for the year to assist with planning.

Transport to and from centres is another challenge. Sometimes there is no hospital vehicle available to transport staff to the centres. As a result they use their own vehicles as and when the need arises.

Conclusion

The project has taught us that although the task at hand initially seemed enormous and insurmountable, by planning carefully and working with dedication, commitment and most importantly by working as a team we can achieve our goals. The key is to also take things one step at a time.

Another important learning to emerge from the project is that when a long-term project is planned instant success cannot be expected and that the situation may actually get slightly worse before improvement. Provided one perseveres and remains focused on the ultimate goal even when things appear difficult, the rewards will surely follow.

As a result of the tremendous support from the community organisations, we have learnt that the goodwill that exists in the community is phenomenal and that the community organisations really care for the communities they serve. All we had to do was to contact them and ask for assistance and the response that we got was overwhelming. They

were even prepared to offer a whole lot more than what they were asked for.

The project also showed us that many people in our communities are willing to offer their services voluntarily and to willingly assist others. This is evident in the large number of volunteers who assist our project in one way or another and who have asked for nothing in return. They are just happy to be of service because they want to make a difference to others.

37VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

PRE-SERVICE LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT � Breaking Barriers of Entry in the Public Service (BB2E)

ENTRY LEVEL PROGRAMME � The Compulsory Induction Programme (CIP) �Wamkelekile – Induction for SMS

IN-SERVICE LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

� Induction to HRM in the Public Service � Application on Policy and Procedure on Incapacity Leave � Strategic Human Resource Planning for the Achievement of organisational results � Developing HRD implementation plans for the Public Service �Grievance and Disciplinary Action Procedures � Human Resource Behavioural Competencies � Human Resource Monitoring and Reporting � Investigating and Presiding Skills � Job Evaluation Initial � Job Evaluation Follow Up � Job Evaluation Panel � Recruitment and Selection in the Public Service � Use of Human Resource Management Information � Assessor Training Course � Designing Curriculum and Learning Material for the Public Service (5 days) � Designing Curriculum and Learning Material for the Public Service (8 days) �Moderator Training Course � Job Evaluation: Core and Description � Training of Trainers programme for Management Development Institutes (MDIs) in Africa � Training of Trainers programme for the Public Service �Organisational Design (OD) Course � Disability Management in the Public Service �Generic Orientation on Human Resource Strategic Frameworks � Human Resource Policy Development � Labour Relations for Managers in the Public Service

MONITORING AND EVALUATION PROGRAMMES � Introduction to Monitoring and Evaluation in the Public Sector � Apply Monitoring and Evaluation Principles in the Public Sector: A Programme for M&E Practitioners � Course1: Orientation to Monitoring and Evaluation � Course 2: Use of Indicators for Managing performance in Government � Course 3: Quantitative Research Methods for Monitoring and Evaluation � Course 4: Information Management for Monitoring and Evaluation � Course 5: Qualitative Research methods for Monitoring and Evaluation � Course 6: Data Analysis and Presentation methods for Monitoring and Evaluation � Course 7: Report Writing for Monitoring and Evaluation

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PROGRAMMES � Bid Committee (MFMA) � Bid Committee (PFMA) � Budget Analysis for the Public Service � Budget Formulation for the Public Service � Contract Management (MFMA) � Contract Management (PFMA) � Demand Management � Inventory Management �Municipal Supply Chain Management Programme � Supply Chain Management for the Public Service � SCOA and ERF for Practitioners-Advanced � Advanced Acquisition Management � Detection and Combating of Bid Rigging in the Public Sector � Strategic sourcing: Strategic Assessment � Strategic sourcing: Strategic Development � Strategic Sourcing: Execution � Logistics Management � SCOA & ERF for Budget Managers � SCOA & ERF for Practitioners � Introduction to Assets Management � Applied Risk Assessment � Risk Response and Reporting �Municipal Finance Management Programme

PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROGRAMMES � Basic Project Management for the Public Service � Advanced Project Management for the Public Service

GOOD GOVERNANCE PROGRAMMES � Project Khaedu [2 Modules] � Anti-Corruption Training for Practitioners � Ethics Management in Local Government � Excellent Customer Service for Frontline Staff � Diversity Management � Promotion of the Administrative Justice Act (PAJA) for Managers in the Public Sector �Mainstreaming Gender in the Public Service � Promoting Anti-Corruption in the Public Service

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES � Executive Development Programme (EDP) [10 Modules] � Foundation Management Development Programme (FMDP) � Emerging Management Development Programme (EMDP) � Advanced Management Development Programme (AMDP) � Accelerated Development Programme (ADP) [6 Modules] �Mentoring and Coaching for Public Service Managers � Leading Innovation in the Public Service

DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES FOR LEGISLATURES � Legislatures Capacity Building Programme [4 Modules] � Advanced Certificate in Governance and Public Leadership [4 Modules]

SUMMARY OF PROGRAMMES OFFERED IN 2014 – 2015National School of Government

Department:

REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

school of government

Training Contact Centre: +27 12 441 6777Switchboard: +27 12 441 6000Fax: +27 12 441 6054

Web address: www.thensg.gov.zae-mail: [email protected]

Learn. Grow. Serve.

38 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

INNOVATION IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE

Introduction

The phenomenon of innovation has become important for both societies and public workplaces. Rapid changes in the public sector environment characterised by financial pressure, a well-informed citizenry and continuous introduction of new technologies, have contributed to this trend. As a result, innovative approaches to service delivery in the public sector are emerging.

The public sector has not always been particularly open to innovation. Middle management has found it difficult to step forward with innovations in practice and few incentives are present to change this situation (Borins, 2001). When innovation does occur, it is said that success is met with mild approval, while failure is more severely regarded. Budgets are not likely to be provided for creative thinking or experimenting and hiring practices put more stock in public service careers than in individuals who problem-solve through innovation and creativity. The perception that the public sector lacks vision with respect to innovation is apparent in the modernisation and reform trends that began in the 1980s and continues today. However, CAPAM’s experience

INSIGHTS

First printed in the Commonwealth Innovations Review (staff article), Volume 19, Number 4, December 2013, published by the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM)

39VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

up-to-date and efficient. The quality of service delivery may be improved by the use of modern technology, but such innovation also positively impacts on Government’s productivity and administrative costs.

More than ever before, information is recorded, managed and made available effectively and efficiently. Information and communications technology allows for dramatic improvements in capability that also reduces costs and opens the way for better decisions and thus, better service delivery.

Types of Innovation

Various categorisations of innovation have been put forward by the existing literature (Baker 2002). A common typology applicable to both private sector and public sectors, differentiates between three types of innovation: process; product/service; and strategy/business concept innovation. Two categories apply to the delivery of public services in a wider system adaptation: innovations in the area of strategy/policy as well as service/product innovation. The list below summarises the five main types of innovation that relate to the provision and delivery of public services.

• Strategy/policy, e.g. new missions, objectives, strategies and rationales;

• Service/product, e.g. changes in features and design of services/products;

• Delivery, e.g. new or altered ways of delivering services or otherwise interacting with clients;

• Process, e.g. new internal procedures, policies and organisational forms; and

• System interaction, e.g. new or improved ways of interacting with other actors and knowledge bases, changes in governance.

The Innovation Process

While it is not generally thought so, governments can be good idea-generators. Governments have made use of public/private input from formal committees, citizen groups and internal panels to develop projects for improving public sector processes. Where governments often find their Achilles heel, is in the implementation phases of these projects. At a recent CAPAM regional forum in Malaysia, the Honourable Senator Dato’ Sri Idris Jala, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Malaysia and Chief Executive Officer of the Performance Management

based on its International Innovation Awards process, reveals that despite this attitude and environment, public servants at the higher levels and even middle managers are proposing innovations and being noticed for it.

Innovation: A Concise Definition

A myriad of definitions exist on innovation. Common to these definitions is the notion of ‘newness’ - new ideas, services, processes and implementation leading to results and performance enhancement. Implementation is key and relates to the fact that a new idea is not the same as innovation, but must be put into practice. Newness, as a critical component of an innovation, is associated with the organisation and not necessarily ‘new in all senses’. Walker (2007) succinctly incorporates these concepts by defining innovation as “a process through which new ideas, objects and practices are created, developed and reinvented, and which are new for the unit of adoption”. The innovation definition adopted at CAPAM is “change that outperforms previous practice”. In essence, innovation must lead to a clear improvement in performance.

Innovation and Service Delivery

Service delivery is a principal driver of the public service mandate. Innovation can provide the impetus for speeding up service delivery or satisfying ever-increasing demands from citizens. The development of new systems, methods, prototypes, products and services and their implementation is directly linked to service delivery enhancement. The innovative use of information and technology is a prime way to improve the delivery of products and services. The provision of a vast amount of comprehensive and accurate information that is easily accessible by the public, underpins the delivery of benefits to citizens. This requires complex information systems that are

40 VOL. 5 ISSUE 1 2014

INSIGHTS

and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU), in his keynote address, emphasised that ‘beautiful’ plans and promises that are short on delivery create angst among the citizenry which desires results. He noted the five pervasive challenges faced by most public services: a lack of focus and direction, working in silos, a clarity gap between high level plans and implementation, lack of citizen input, and, finally, a lack of accountability.

In recent years, several governments have launched performance reviews with public and private sector panels reviewing and suggesting reform to practices. There are examples of concrete gains from these initiatives, but many lost their initial luster and dissipated. The question is why. The answer lies in the ability of innovators to suggest an innovation accompanied by a plan to implement it. This must occur right at the front end of brainstorming. A further third step must also be considered, that of demonstrating results.

Some governments have begun implementing processes for turning ideas into solutions. These translate into an innovation cycle (Eggers and Singh, 2009) that typically includes idea-generation, idea-selection, idea-implementation, and idea-diffusion. Success relies on equal importance being attributed to each stage.

Change proposals and idea-generation are generally not lacking in government, but innovation would be better served by a more systematic approach that has the potential to deliver more meaningful results. Ideas may be sourced from within a system, but government may find advantages in seeking innovative ideas from outside the confines of the public service.

The next challenge is to decide which ideas merit investment. A proposal must be defended in order to go forward and obtain stakeholder buy-in to be resilient.Development and execution come next. This is a particularly difficult aspect of the innovation process, especially for

government. It requires the leadership and flexibility to deal with uncertainty and unexpected changes.

The last stage in the innovation cycle involves the spread and adoption of the resulting innovation throughout the organisation. Barriers to innovation can pop up at any stage and can be as simple as lack of funding or openness to ideas, but other less obvious issues arise when people work in silo, are apathetic to change or have opposing agendas.

Drivers and Barriers to Innovation

“Innovation is motivated and driven by a variety of short, medium and long-term factors. In the public service, the driving imperative for innovation is the need to respond effectively and efficiently to new and changing government and community expectations in an increasingly complex environment”. Innovation drivers in the public sector include:• High public expectations of

government service delivery; • Ongoing financial pressures; • Political pressure;• Competition; and• Technological change.

One question remains. With so many drivers for innovation, both within and outside the public sector, why is the public sector not more innovative? An inherent tendency to conservative thinking by public sector organisations may provide a partial answer. Stepping outside of the rules for formalising and systematising how things get done, may hinder innovation, but other barriers exist. They include: • Size and complexity of public

services;• Culture of working in silos;• Resistance; • Innovation fatigue caused by pace

and scale of change;• Lack of resources including time

and funding; and • Shortages in relevant skills.

Conclusion

Public service organisations are increasingly seeing the benefit of using the power of innovation to solve problems. They, however, face many challenges in finding ways to inspire and support both their leaders and public servants at all levels to see and do things differently in the delivery of services to citizens. In identifying issues, it is hoped that they turn increasingly to innovation and creative thinking for solutions. Innovation can be the tool that empowers the public service to achieve radical change, perhaps pioneering solutions and, in the end, better outcomes for lower costs.

References

Borins, Sandford (2001), “Encouraging Innovation in the Public Sector, Journal of intellectual Capital, Vol 2, Issues 3, pp. 310-319

Walker, Richard M, (2007): “An Empirical Evaluation of Innovation Types and Organizational and Environmental Characteristics: Towards a Configuration Framework”: Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, JPART, 18:591-615

“Enhancing Services Through the Innovative Use of Information and technology” http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013

“Specificities of public sector service innovation”, http://www.servppin.com/uploadFiles/ServPPIN_papers/Files_WP2/Specificities%20of%20public%20sector%20service%20innovation.pdf.N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013

ANAO - Publications - Better Practice Guide –“Innovation in the Public Sector: Enabling Better Performance, Driving New Directions” http://www.anao.gov.au/bpg-innovation/1_introduction.html. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013

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Stockholm – Innovation, alongside resources and institutional support, is the game changer in an environment that is proving to have no easy answers in providing water and sanitation to the masses, especially as the race heats up to close the equality gap post 2015.

However, innovation need not be as daunting as reinventing the wheel. It can be as simple – or practical – as recombining a few tried and trusted building blocks to make them work even better.

The trick is to be willing to keep trying over and over, until traction is made towards a happy medium where the gap between rich and poor is not characterised by access to water and sanitation, says Dr David Nilsson.

Nilsson, who is based at the School of Architecture and the Built Environment at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, said with the world’s gaze firmly fixed on life after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) deadline, a paradigm shift is necessary if the world hopes to change the way basic services are delivered.

“To meet present day challenges, business as usual is not going to be an option,” said Nilsson.

Nilsson was speaking at a plenary titled ”Access, Poverty and the post 2015 Development Agenda” at the 2014 World Water Week.

The plenary was an opportunity to engage in discussions on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to ultimately close the equality gap.

Under MDG 7 – which is to ensure environmental sustainability – 2.3 billion people have gained access to clean drinking water. The flip side of the coin is that 2.5 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation, such as toilets or latrines.

Target 7.C of MDG 7 stipulates that by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation must be dramatically reduced.

Nilsson said in the post 2015 agenda, a SDG dealing specifically with water and sanitation is in order.

With the 69th Session of the UN General Assembly around the corner, Nilsson said it was time to move beyond the “buzz words” and set concrete, tangible and actionable goals.

Region specific solutions

As leaders are increasingly calling for everyone’s involvement in solving the water and sanitation backlog, Nilsson said the door is wide open for everyone to come up with solutions to suit their own regions.

“The post-industrial North doesn’t have all the answers,” he said.

Going through the development phase, is an advantage the South must use, Nilsson said. As countries’ water and sanitation systems are still being established, this presents a unique opportunity to innovate new solutions that work for the specific contexts found in Africa.

In her keynote address to the panel, Water and Sanitation Minister, Nomvula Mokonyane, said the importance of finding local solutions, which have community buy-in, cannot be overstated.

She said sanitation and water provision must take into consideration the needs of the people governments seek to serve.

“This can only happen if we take our people along,” said the Minister.

Involving communities in the final stage of bringing services to them, is too little too late and quite simply unsustainable, she told delegates.

SAnews.gov.za

INNOVATING TO CLOSE THE EQUALITY GAP

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NEWS BRIEFS

The idea of a dozen robots exploring deep in the platinum mines of the North West province to make sure conditions are safe for miners to work, is almost out of Isaac Asimov’s Robot novels. But the idea is quickly becoming a reality thanks to a team of South African robotics engineers at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

The CSIR’s Mobile Intelligence Autonomous Systems (Mias) group has been hard at work testing robots that can monitor the safety of mines after blasting.

According to Natasha Govender, Mias’s senior researcher, safety in mines has always been a big issue in South Africa and

ROBOTS THAT CAN SAVE MINERS’ LIVES

robots present a perfect solution. Instead of having people manually examine hanging walls for safety after blasting, robots can go into the mine and check the walls. This ensures that human beings do not have to risk injury or even death by entering the area.

The mine robot almost resembles Disney’s WALL-E character. Instead of legs, it has a pair of rotating treads able to move over rough terrain. The bulk of it is made up of a compactor box fitted with a camera, and an arm that can move in seven different directions, or “seven degrees of freedom”.

Mias’s main concern is to programme the robot with the intelligence to interact

with dynamic human environments and operate without human support. Sensory equipment such as lasers and cameras allows the robot to chart its own path and detect obstacles in its way. If it encounters an obstacle, such as a wall, a chair or even a person, it can move around it and continue on its initial path.

The robot is also programmed for path planning with orientation, autonomous stairway detection with movability, and cooperation between multiple robots. It can also be controlled with a tablet computer. According to Govender, the Mias group would soon add gas sensors to the machine to detect the breathability of the air after blasting.

Other than the mining robot, Mias is also working on search and rescue robots, and “mule” robots, unmanned machines that can carry out multiple functions such as carry equipment, drop off medical supplies or pick up injured people. The mule is able to move around any environment using GPS way-marks or by following a person to a specific point.

While saving lives has always been paramount, the robots would also save mining companies millions of rands in work stoppages, and prevent conflict with unions if workers were hurt or killed on duty.

http://www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com

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In a country where millions of citizens rely on open fires or paraffin as primary fuel source for heating and cooking, fire accidents, respiratory diseases and deforestation are commonplace.

Working with low-income households in the HaMakuya district in Limpopo province enabled the University of Johannesburg’s Chris Bradnum to design a safer, more efficient biomass stove that is also kinder to the environment.

The Tshulu Stove, named after the Tshulu Trust who partnered with Bradnum in his project, is a safe, efficient and sustainable wood burning stove for rural and low-income households that promises to reduce deforestation while decreasing the risks of burning or developing respiratory illnesses from open fire cooking.

According to Bradnum, who is head of the university’s industrial design department, “The majority of low-income households in South Africa relies on open fires or use paraffin as their primary fuel source for heating and cooking needs.” Quoting a study by the Global Alliance for Clean Cook Stoves, Bradnum indicated that an estimated figure of three billion people in the developing world cook food and heat their homes with traditional cook stoves or on open fires. He furthermore revealed that smoke exposure from cooking on open fires or using inefficient stoves in the homes, account for more than four million premature deaths every year.

Bradnum said that while gas could be an ideal alternative to electricity in terms of clean cooking and efficiency,

A SAFER, MORE EFFICIENT STOVE FOR LOW-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS

there was a general mistrust of gas stoves, with paraffin being the fuel of choice for cooking in many areas.

However, in the Ha-Makuya, Vhembe District in Limpopo, where Bradnum conducted his research, the community tends to use wood fires for cooking - making the Tshulu Stove, which reduces both the amount of wood required and the smoke and emissions given off by fires, an excellent solution.

“The cutting down of trees is strictly controlled in the area by village headmen and the local chiefs, so households can only use wood that has fallen off the trees or specific areas that have been demarcated for tree felling.” This means that the community has to spend long hours searching for wood.

“The fallen branches are of little use in open fires as these burn up very quickly and do not generate enough heat for cooking. However, these smaller branches burn extremely well in the Tshulu Stove,” Bradnum said.

The Tshulu Stove is an improvement of the “rocket stove” that was designed and developed by Aprovecho in the US, which includes a burn chamber and direct chimney of heat to the base of the cooking pot.

However, added features that uniquely distinguish the Tshulu Stove include innovations such as introducing air below the burn chamber, a removable ashtray, standing height cooking, an inner sleeve that reduces the amount of heat loss from the burn chamber,

and an outer sleeve that reduces the chance of burning the stove’s users.

In laboratory testing conducted at the university’s Sustainable Energy Technology and Research Centre (SeTAR), the stove’s combustion efficiency levels were comparatively lower for paraffin, charcoal and wood.

“In effect, the Tshulu Stove will save an average household, cooking three meals a day on the stove, 7 kilograms of wood per day over that of a three-stone fire,” Bradnum said. “This translates to a saving of 2 500 kilograms of wood for one household in a year.”

SAinfo

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The world’s largest commercial fly farm, which will harvest the larvae of 8.5 billion flies to produce food for chickens, pigs and farmed fish, is under construction in South Africa.

Built by a Cape Town and Gibraltar-based company. Agriprotein, after raising US $11 million from investors, the initiative is based on an innovative waste-to-protein concept that could revolutionise the global animal feed market.

In a process that has been under development since 2009, Agriprotein uses flies reared on an industrial scale to lay eggs that are hatched into larvae. These are then fed on readily available organic waste material - including out-of-date and uneaten food, animal manure and abattoir waste.

The larvae are then harvested and dried into a natural and sustainable feed - dubbed and trademarked MagMeal (from “maggot meal”) for chicken, pigs and farmed fish. Also generated during the process, are an extruded oil (MagOil) and a nutrient-rich fertilizer (MagSoil).“Instead of polluting the environment with abattoir and other organic waste, it is turned into high-quality protein that can naturally replace fishmeal in industrial farming and help save our

SOUTH AFRICAN FLYFARM TO PRODUCE PROTEIN FROM WASTE

seas,” the company said in a recent statement.

Agriprotein broke ground on its first industrial scale factory, located in Cape Town, in May, and expects the plant to come on line in 2015 and produce seven tonnes of MagMeal, three tonnes of MagOil and 20 tonnes of MagSoil per day. Its second factory will also be built in South Africa, at a location still to be chosen.

The company has received product approval in South Africa and is confident that its insect protein meal will achieve European acceptance as an animal feed within 24 months.

After all, the company says, insect larvae are the natural food of chickens in the wild and fish in streams, with a

nutritional composition as good as that of fishmeal and better than soya - the two most commonly used sources of protein animal feed used by industrial farmers.

And while land-based soya plantations require vast amounts of land and water, and over-fishing has put a strain on the supply of fishmeal - helping to drive the prices of both protein sources up in recent years - waste nutrient sources for fly larvae are abundantly available.

Agriprotein says it will start licensing its nutrient recycling technology worldwide in 2015, adding: “Within 15 years we will consider it as normal to recycle our waste nutrients as we do our paper, tin and glass today.”

SAInfo

NEWS BRIEFS

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SOUTH AFRICAN FLYFARM TO PRODUCE PROTEIN FROM WASTE

Researchers at South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have developed a world-first digital laser that could be a game-changer in the field, paving the way for new laser applications in areas ranging from medicine to communications.

A team based at the CSIR’s National Laser Centre has shown that, instead of resorting to expensive optics or other special mediating devices to control the shape of the light coming out of a laser, laser beams can be digitally controlled from within the laser device itself.

The team’s findings were published in the 2 August edition of the prestigious journal called Nature Communications.

Announcing the breakthrough at a media briefing in Pretoria, Former Minister of Science and Technology, Mr Derek Hanekom, applauded the innovation as evidence of the country’s potential for scientific innovation.

“That the world’s first digital laser should come from our country is testimony to the calibre of scientists that South Africa has,” Hanekom said.

SOUTH AFRICA IN DIGITAL LASER ‘WORLD FIRST’

CSIR researcher, Sandile Ngcobo, whose experimental work led to the breakthrough, said he believed the digital laser would prove to be a “disruptive” technology. “This is technology which may change the status quo and which could create new markets and value networks within the next few years or decade,” Ngcobo said in a statement.

Prof Andrew Forbes, who led the team of researchers, said the digital laser used a liquid crystal display (LCD) placed inside the laser. “Just as with LCD televisions, the LCD inside the laser can [digitally] be sent pictures to display. When the pictures change on the LCD inside, the properties of the laser beams that exit the device, change accordingly,” Forbes said.

“This is a significant advancement from the traditional approach to laser beam control, which requires costly optics and realignment of the laser device for every beam change,” Forbes said. “Since this is all done with pictures, the digital laser represents a paradigm shift for laser resonators.”

Laser technology already has widespread applications in devices ranging from lighting displays to printers, DVD players, barcode scanners, surgical equipment and industrial cutters and welders.

“The dynamic control of laser modes could open up many future applications, from communications to medicine,” Forbes said. “Our device represents a new way of thinking about laser technology, and we see it as a new platform on which future technologies may be built.”

SAInfo

That the world’s first digital laser should come from our country is testimony to the calibre of scientists that South Africa has.

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Surgical procedures are by nature a matter of life and death and every doctor can testify to the high quality of technique and precision required. However, lately robotic surgery has developed and evolved to a point where technologies are now able to make colorectal, gynecological, urological, cardiac and thoracic procedures less invasive, reducing the risk of complication and speeding up healing time.

To the average South African, robotic surgery has remained a figment of imagination, a reality that only applied to people in far off countries. Well, until recently that is.

In October 2013, South Africa unveiled its first da Vinci robotic surgery system signalling a giant leap forward in our country’s medical history. The unveiling of this cutting edge innovation took place at Pretoria’s Urology Hospital.

In robotically-assisted surgery, the surgeon sits at a console and operates robotic arms that manipulate miniaturised tools inserted into the patient’s body through small incisions. This highly technical exercise which involves remotely operating robotic arms, requires skills of the highest order. Hence, the R17 million cost of the surgical system covers not just the equipment, but the specialist training by skilled surgeons certified in its use.

Talking at the launch of the da Vinci robotic surgery system, Dr Coetzee, who is one of just four South African surgeons qualified to use the system, explained that the system can also be used as a training tool. A miniature lighted camera is able to stream the procedure to multiple monitors, allowing the system to be used

UNDER THE ROBOTIC KNIFE

to up-skill surgeons.

Robotic surgery benefits include less scarring, pain and blood loss; fewer complications, shorter hospital stays and a faster recovery. In tighter spaces the flexible robotic arms can work more precisely than a surgeon so the traditional large incision is no longer necessary.

“The arm mimics the movement of the human wrist so it’s like having a miniature hand inside the abdominal cavity,” Coetzee explained.

Thomas Dunbar, managing director of medical supply company Earth Medical, says the future of robotic surgery will see medicine moving beyond the limitations of the human hand and eye.

“One day a surgeon will be able to

perform surgery without even touching the patient.”

The robot in Pretoria has been christened Mthombo - meaning “pure drinking place by a river” in Zulu.

The da Vinci surgery system has been used in over a million operations since it first came on the market 13 years ago.

“We consider ourselves to be a centre of excellence on the continent,” said Dr Coetzee. Read more: http//:www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com/tech/3491-under-the-robotic-knife#

NEWS BRIEFS

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CityLab is an invitation-only annual event hosted by The Atlantic in partnership with The Aspen Institute and Bloomberg Philanthropies.

The 2014 CityLab was hosted in Los Angeles, bringing together more than 300 of the world’s top current and former mayors, urban experts, city planners, writers, technologists, economists, and designers to engage on city-based innovations. The 3-day programme from 28 to 30 September 2014 fostered dialogue on challenges and innovative practices whilst creating scalable solutions for city leaders to share with their constituencies across the world.

Michael R. Bloomberg, viewed by many as one of the most successful mayors of the City of New York, opened the event. Under his leadership as the 108th mayor of NYC, the city cut crime to a historical low, reduced the city’s carbon footprint, introduced anti-poverty programmes and increased secondary school graduation. Notably, he recently pledged, through Bloomberg Philanthropies, $45 million programme to support innovation in local government.

Bloomberg is further running a Mayor’s Challenge where applicants are required to “define a clear problem and answer it with a solution that is as concrete as it is compelling”. Some of the cities that participated in the 2012/13 Challenge shared their initiatives at CityLab.

Some of the topics under discussion at CityLab 2014 included:• How Cities can Fight Income

Inequality• Infrastructure Investments that

Change Lives

CITYLAB 2014

• What’s Driving the Future of Urban Mobility?

• The New Dynamics of the Sharing City

• Making Innovation Happen in Government

Although the CityLab events originally focussed on US cities, a significant number of international case studies were shared. This year the organisers invited 11 mayors from cities outside the US, including Cape Town. A number of sessions thus shared lessons from cities such as Athens, Jerusalem and Seoul.

Bloomberg Philanthropies earlier in the year funded a study by Nesta, a UK based public sector and social innovation organisation, of 20 innovation teams (or i-teams, as referred to by the report) from

across the globe (see review on page this journal).

These teams were invited to CityLab 2014 and participated in a session on what makes innovation work in Government. CPSI had the honour to be the only African i-team featured in the report and was therefore also invited to 2014 CityLab.

Pierre Schoonraad

For more about the Mayors Challenge, go to http://mayorschallenge.bloomberg.org/

Videos of some of the plenary discussions can be watched at http://www.theat lant ic .com/l ive/events/citylab/2014

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Every day 120 000 metric tons of coal are transported to a plant at Secunda, near Johannesburg, where they are converted into 150 000 barrels of oil a day.

This highly intricate process takes place in the province of Mpumalanga in Secunda, Sasol’s main plant, and the only commercial coal-to-liquid plant in the world. Here, about 150 000 barrels of synthetic fuel are produced per day, enough to meet about 28% of South Africa’s annual fuel needs.

The innovative technology involved is a proudly South African invention. The technology was invented and later perfected by Sasol, then a South African parastatal company.

Coal-to-liquid (CTL) technology makes economic sense particularly today when oil prices in the world continue to hover above $100 a barrel. Companies such as Sasol, which possess such technology and the requisite expertise, have become key players in the global space.

LIQUID FUEL FROM COAL

Already, Sasol’s daily production supplies 30% of South Africa’s transport fuel needs and, what is more important, cars do not need any engine modification to use the product from CTL technology. According to Fuel experts, liquefied coal will be providing much of the world with its transport fuel within the next 20 years.

For the past seven years, aircraft flying from OR Tambo International Airport have used a semi-synthetic blend of 50% jet fuel from coal produced at a Sasol CTL refinery and 50% derived from traditional crude oil.

The Sasol petrochemicals group is being courted by countries across the globe, not only as a result of soaring prices, but also because of the continuing instability in the Middle East. Already India and China have shown keen interest in working with Sasol to turn their massive coal deposits into liquefied coal. In the pipeline are about $25 billion worth of investments in liquid coal.

http://www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com

NEWS BRIEFS

For the past seven years, aircraft flying from OR Tambo International Airport have used a semi-synthetic blend of 50% jet fuel from coal produced at a Sasol CTL refinery and 50% derived from traditional crude oil.

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FUTURE WATCH

It is increasingly clear that the comparative advantage of humans over software has been steadily eroding. Machines and their learning-based algorithms have leapt forward in pattern-matching ability and in the nuances of interpreting and communicating complex information. The long-standing debate about computers as complements or substitutes for human labour has been renewed.

This matter is more than academic. Many of the jobs that had once seemed the sole province of humans – including those pathologists, petroleum geologists, and law clerks – are now being performed by computers. And so it must be asked – can software substitute for the responsibilities of senior managers in their roles at the top of today’s biggest corporations and governments? In some activities, particularly when it comes to finding answers to problems, software already surpasses even the best managers. Knowing whether to assert your expertise or to step out of the way is fast becoming a critical executive skill.

To sort out the exponential advance of deep-learning algorithms and what it means for management sciences, McKinsey Rik Kirkland conducted

a series of interviews at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. Among those interviewed was Andrew McAfee who is associate director and principal research scientist at the Centre for Digital Business at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jeremy Howard who is a research scientist at the University of San Francisco.

McKinsey’s Rik Kirkland: What is the Second Machine Age and why does it matter?

Andrew McAfee: The Industrial Revolution was when humans overcame the limitations of our muscle power. We are now in the early stages of doing the same thing to our mental capacity – infinitely multiplying it by virtue of digital technologies. There are two discontinuous changes that will stick in historians’ minds. The first is the development of artificial intelligence, and the kinds of things we have seen so far are the warm-up act for what is to come. The second big deal is the global interconnection of the world’s population, billions of people who are not only consumers, but also joining the global pool of innovative talent.

We thought we knew, after a few

decades of experience with computers and information technology, the comparative advantages of human and digital labour. But just in the past few years, we have seen astonishing progress. A digital brain can now drive a car down a street and not hit anything or hurt anyone – that is a high-stakes exercise in pattern matching involving lots of different kinds of data and a constantly changing environment.

Jeremy Howard: Today, machine-learning algorithms are actually as good as or better than humans at many things that we think of as being uniquely human capabilities. People whose job is to take boxes of legal documents and figure out which ones are discoverable – that job is rapidly disappearing because computers are much faster and better than people at it.

In 2012, a team of four expert pathologists looked through thousands of breast-cancer screening images, and identified the areas of what is called mitosis, the areas which were the most active parts of a tumour. It takes four pathologists to do that because any two only agree with each other 50 percent of the time. It is that hard to look at these images; there is so much complexity. So they then took this kind

CAN MACHINES REPLACE EXECUTIVES?

Interview by Rik Kirkland, McKinsey Global Institute, New York (Adapted by Nsizwa Dlamini)

The Article is republished from McKinsey Quarterly, Number 3, 2014

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of consensus of experts and fed those breast cancer images with those tags to a machine-learning algorithm. The algorithm came back with something that agreed with the pathologists 60 percent of the time, it is more accurate at identifying the very thing that these pathologists were trained for years to do. And this machine-learning algorithm was built by people with no background in life sciences at all. These are total domain newbies.

McKinsey: Computers have been around for more than 50 years. Why is machine learning suddenly so important?

Andrew: There is a passage from a Hemingway novel about a man going broke in two ways: “gradually and then suddenly”. And that characterises the progress of digital technologies. It was really slow and gradual and then, boom – suddenly, it is right now.

Jeremy Howard: I think people are massively underestimating the impact, on both their organisations and on society, of the combination of data plus modern analytical techniques. The reason for that is very clear: these techniques are growing exponentially in capability, and the human brain just cannot conceive of that.

There is no organisation and government that should not be thinking about leveraging these approaches.

As an example, Google announced that it had just completed mapping the exact location of every business, every household, and every street number in the entirety of France. You would think it would have needed to send a team of 100 people out to each suburb and district to go around with a GPS and that the whole thing would take maybe a year, right? In fact, it took Google one hour.

Now, how did the company do that? Rather than programming a computer yourself to do something, with machine learning you give it some examples and

it kind of figures out the rest. So Google took its street-view database which is hundreds of millions of images and had somebody manually go through a few hundred and circle the street numbers in them. Then Google fed that to a machine-learning algorithm and said, “You figure out what is unique about those circled things, find them in the other 100 million images, then read the numbers that you find.” That is what took an hour. So when you switch from traditional to a machine-learning way of doing things, you increase productivity and scalability by so many orders of magnitude that the nature of the challenges your organisation faces totally changes.

McKinsey: How will top managers go about their day-to-day jobs?

Andrew: The first Machine Age really led to the art and science and practice of management – to management as a discipline. As we expanded these big organisations, factories, railways, etc., we had to create these big organisations to oversee that very complicated infrastructure. We had to invent what management was, including in governing.

In the Second Machine Age, there is going to be equally big changes to the art of running an organisation. I cannot think of a corner of the business world and government that is immune to the astonishing technological progress we are seeing.

I do not think this means that everything those leaders do right now become irrelevant. I have still never seen a piece of technology that could negotiate effectively or motivate and lead a team, or figure out what is going on in a rich social situation or what motivates people and how you get them to move in the direction you want.

These are human abilities. They are going to stick around. But if the people currently running larger enterprises and governments think there is nothing about technology revolution that is going to

affect them, I think they would be naive.So the role of a senior manager in a deeply data-driven world is going to shift. I think the job is going to be to figure it out. “Where do I actually add value and where should I get out of the way and go where the data takes me?” That is going to mean a very deep rethinking of the idea of the managerial “gut”, or intuition.

It is striking how little data you need before you would want to switch over and start being data driven instead of intuition driven. Right now, there are a lot of leaders of organisations who say, “Of course I’m data driven. I take the data and I use that as an input to my final decision-making process.” But there is a lot of research showing that, in general, this leads to a worse outcome than if you rely purely on the data. Now, there are a ton of wrinkles here. But on average, if you second-guess what data tells you, you tend to have worse results. And it is very painful, especially for experienced, successful people, to walk away quickly from the idea that there is something inherently magical or unsurpassable about our particular intuition.

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2014 CPSI PUBLIC SECTOR INNOVATION AWARDS

AWARDS AND ACCOLADES

On this beautiful occasion of the 12th CPSI Public Sector Innovation Awards let me begin with a short Greek Mythology, the story of the famous Trojan horse.

Legend has it that there existed once upon a time a famous city called Troy. So beautiful and rich was this city that everyone, especially the Greeks wanted to capture it. But this was impossible because of the very thick high walls around the city which were impossible to scale or penetrate.

Until Odysseus, a Greek general had an idea. Accordingly, the Greek army would build a huge, hollow wooden horse and present it to the Trojans as a token that they, the Greeks, were tired of fighting and thus surrendering to the Trojans. The unsuspecting Trojan army, heads swelling with pomp and pride accepted the gift and, amid rapturous cheers of jubilations, dragged the wooden horse through the city gates. If only they knew that inside the hollow horse lay waiting, thirty Greek men who were armed to the teeth. Later that night, in the stealth of the darkness the men crept out of the horse and swooped upon the Trojans who were sleeping, tired and drunk from the festivities. Thus came the fall of the famous city of Troy. Through creativity and innovation, the Greek conquered!

On 31 October 2014, the CPSI hosted its 12th Public Sector Innovation Awards Ceremony. Minister for Public Service and Administration, Collins Chabane delivered the Keynote Address:

The public sector has often regularly been branded as incapable of thinking, creativity, smartness, sophistication and so on, but this ceremony today provides us with an opportunity to dispute those allegations and instead illustrate that smartness, creativity and innovation are indeed in the fabric of the public sector.

Tonight is a very special occasion when we recognise, reward and celebrate the spirit of innovation and creative thinking in the public service, visible in the many wonderful innovative projects that were entered for the 2014 CPSI Public Sector Innovation Awards. This is, beyond doubt, a very inspiring moment when we for once focus on solutions rather than challenges.

We know, and most importantly acknowledge that in their daily lives, our people confront numerous challenges, most of which are about services which they unjustly cannot access despite it being their constitutional right. Their abject poverty which sees some of our people facing each day unaware of where their next meal will come from. There are healthcare challenges, poorly resourced schools that impact negatively on the quality of education, and many other areas that seek our urgent intervention.

Governments around the world are facing similar challenges and they have all acknowledged that innovation, as demonstrated by the finalist projects today, is one of the critical interventions which strengthen efforts towards transforming or modernising the public sector.

I am convinced that most of the innovators here present, be it finalists or serial innovators, at more than one occasion felt like the Greeks where the challenges they faced stood in their way like the walls of Troy.

The one thing all here have in common is that instead of seeing barriers and obstacles, they innovated and found ways to conquer what seemed impossible. These people have gone beyond their call of duty, have refused to throw their hands in the air with defeat and have pushed the boundaries, straddled mandates legally to achieve their service delivery outcomes.

The CPSI claims also unearthing already existing innovative solutions; today becomes the day on which they demonstrate the meaning of that claim. Tonight will be introduced to home-grown innovations to learn from and replicate.

The one thing all here have in common is that instead of seeing barriers and obstacles, they innovated and found ways to conquer what seemed impossible.

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birth to world-renowned pioneers such as Sandile Ngcobo and his world-first digital laser, Mark Shuttleworth and his ground-breaking Ubuntu open-source software technology, Elon Musk who pioneered commercial spacecraft and redefined electric vehicles with the Tesla and not forgetting Ludwick Marishane’s waterless “Drybath” that has become a critical resource for Aid organisations, Armies and even airlines such as British Airways.

Government, business and the NGO sectors, we all have a highly critical part to play in helping to make Vision 2030 of the National Development Plan an attainable reality. Together we can innovate for a productive public service and a properly serviced citizenry.

Once again, as the Minister for Public Service and Administration, I am humbled by the dedication and commitment of our public officials in improving the lives of our people. I am urging the CPSI to continue to unearth innovative solutions and encourage innovators in our country. You are all winners and I congratulate all of you.

I thank each and everyone here tonight for embracing us one way or the other and especially for joining us tonight to celebrate these innovative initiatives.

fellow South Africans who stand to benefit when these endeavours are replicated.

Last year’s overall winner of the highly coveted Innovator of the Year Award, that is, the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Animal Health Project, continues to lead the way in terms of excellence and innovation in the Agricultural sector. I got to learn with pride that on Wednesday 29 October, the Department launched the Temba Animal Clinic and at the same time the CPSI was invited to hand over a portable kraal trailer which they were able to purchase from their prize money.

The benefit is that the animals will not have to be transported from communities such as Temba and Hammanskraal, to farms where there are handling facilities. Instead, the facilities will be transported to them. That is remarkable!

I would like to congratulate all the winners. Above all, I would like to salute all those public servants who, in the spirit of active and participatory citizenship, decided to take the challenge in respect of a need that was expressed by the community around them. You are all heroes!

Thank you for reminding us all that we are a nation of innovators – a nation that gave

Early this year, the CPSI called for entries into the 12th Public Sector Innovation Awards. Projects were to be entered in the four categories which we will soon be taken through.

Public officials across the three spheres of our government heeded this call. A total of 126 projects were received, a clear indication of the growth and the value our public sector has come to place on this programme. It was reported to me that the adjudicators did not have an easy time as the large majority of the entries were exceptional. I must acknowledge and express my gratitude to these extremely busy individuals who sacrificed their time to support this programme.

Tonight we are proud to witness the culmination of that arduous journey of maturity in the form of sixteen quality projects – bearing testimony to the existence of innovation in the public sector. An important lesson for us is that innovation cuts across all sectors and all activities and furthermore that it is not restricted only to ICT gadgets.

Beyond all that, and of incomparable value, is the depth of commitment and dedication demonstrated in each of these entries by public officials who have the passion for and are dedicated to the wellbeing of their

Limpopo Department of Transport’s Diesel JoJo Tanks project was awarded the coveted CPSI Innovator of the Year Award.

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Joint winners in the category Innovative Partnerships in Service Delivery : Gauteng’s Community Food Production Unitsand KZN’s Inkosi Albert Luthuli Hospital

Winner in the category Innovative use of information and Communication Technology (ICT) for effective service delivery KZN’s Digital Pen for mHealth.

Special Ministerial Awards

The recipients of this year’s special awards are individuals and units whose exceptional work has had an extraordinary broad impact within the public sector, and, as is the case with two of our recipients, celebrate the inventiveness of ordinary citizens to improve service delivery .

The first recipient of a Special Ministerial Award is the Innovation and Knowledge Management unit in the Office of the Premier, Eastern Cape as an example of innovation driven at a provincial level with a cross-cutting impact on all the departments. Their work has earned them recognition as the public sector innovation ambassadors setting the pace and strategic direction. Over the last 5 years, this unit has helped to unearth no less than 7 CPSI finalist projects, including the 2011 Innovator of the Year and AAPSIA (All Africa Public Sector Innovation Awards) overall winner in 2010.


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Winners in the category Innovative enhancements of internal systems of Government Gauteng Tembisa Hospital’s Case Management

Special Ministerial Awards were presented to the Department of Correctional Services, Eastern Cape Office of the Premier and to two young innovators, Reabetswe Ngwane and Thato Kgatlhanye, for their Repurpose School Bags project.

The second recipient is the Service Delivery Improvement Unit in the Department of Correctional Services. This is another sterling ex-ample of an organisation-wide approach to public sector innovation. The Department of Correctional Services has, over many years, continued to innovate to improve service delivery, as is evident from the 4 finalist projects over the past five years. The Department will soon meet with the CPSI to set the ball rolling for the replication of the Ligbron e-Learning project, a 2013 Public Sector Innovator of the Year.

Two young entrepreneurs, Reabetswe Ngwane and Thato Kgatlhanye of Rethaka Company, have earned local and international ac-colades for their simple but innovative initiative, aptly named Repurpose School Bags. They are the recipients of the third Ministerial Award. In their own words they define their company, Rethaka, as a “radical idea of uncovering opportunities and inspiring a compas-sionate, bold and tenacious kind of creativity to uplift communities with ideas.” They further said “We use innovation as a means to social change and choose to zig while others zag. “ They represent everything that is expected from every public servant to be when it comes to service delivery: to be compassionate, bold and radical.

They recycle plastic shopping bags by turning them into textile material; this is then made into school bags. Each school bag has a solar panel that charges as the child walks to school. The solar panel is later removed from the school bag to become a solar lantern that has up to 12 hours of lighting that can be used for studying.

This special bag also has retro-reflective material, making the school kids more visible on the road as some of them leave home early while it is still dark to set off on a long walk to school.

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SOUTH AFRICA RECEIVES UN PUBLIC SERVICE AWARD


South Africa has done it again, this time winning the UN Public Service Award for innovative solutions that improve public service delivery and promote sustainable development.

The Gauteng Department of Education was honoured at the UN Public Service Forum and Ceremony that took place from 23 June 2014 to 26 June 2014 in Seoul, South Korea.

The winning project from the department is the Secondary School Improvement Programme (SSIP).

South Africa is among the first-place winners, which also include Austria, Bahrain, Brazil, Morocco, Oman, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey and Uruguay.

In 2003, the UN General Assembly designated 23 June as UN Public Service Day to celebrate the value and virtue of service to the community.

The UN Public Service Award is the most prestigious international recognition of excellence in the public service. It rewards

the creative achievements and contributions of public service institutions that lead to a more effective and responsive public administration in countries worldwide.

Read more on the project on page 26 of this publication.

Gateng MEC for Finance and former MEC for Education, Barbara Creecy, CEO of CPSI, Thuli Radebe, and the new Gauteng MEC for Education Panyaza Lesufi at the UN Public Service Awards Ceremony in Seoul.

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eTHEKWINI SCOOPS COVETED SANITATION AWARD

eThekwini Municipality has reason to celebrate, as its efforts to eradicate the water and sanitation backlog have been acknowledged with one of the most prestigious awards in this sector.

eThekwini Water and Sanitation (EWS) was officially bestowed the coveted 2014 Stockholm Industry Water Award. The city was given the accolade by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), and it can proudly wear the title of “Most innovative and progressive water utility in Africa”.

Present to accept the award at the 2014 World Water Week in the Swedish capital, was the outgoing eThekwini Water and Sanitation head, Neil Macleod.

In accepting the award, Neil Macleod explained that their biggest achievement as a water service provider, has been to bring water and sanitation services to so many poor people and transforming their lives.

EWS was established as a public water service provider in 1996. In 2000, its scope and boundaries were expanded, creating the challenge of having to provide services to one million people.

“… Providing water to 1.3 million people and proper sanitation to 700 000 people in such a short space of time has not been achieved in many countries,” said Macleod.

He said the key to their success has been innovation and not being scared to take unconventional decisions.

“Technologies used to bring services to the poor, such as electronic bailiff units,

community ablution blocks and the construction of 80 000 urine diversion toilets, speak to our past.

“What we have realised is that into the future, we need to find new technologies that meet people’s expectations when it comes to sanitation.”

Macleod said South Africa needed to move away from a sanitation system that separates the “haves” from the “have-nots”. He said he hoped to see an innovation in the not-too-distant future, which will eradicate the need for water-based toilets.

Water and Sanitation Minister, Nomvula Mokonyane, congratulated eThekwini for leading the way in bringing services to the masses.

“It is quite heartening to see our own local government receiving this kind of recognition. We can say it is because of the political will, good management and cooperation within the municipality, provincial and national government, the community, as well as support from the private sector.

“We believe that if our local authorities can learn out of this, we can eradicate our sanitation backlog. We need to commend the leadership and bravery of the eThekwini Municipality for having broken new ground. We look forward to other municipalities [achieving the same],” said the Minister.

She said South Africa needed to move away from a “one size fits all approach” when it comes to sanitation.

She said municipalities had to work around the fact that it was difficult to lay bulk infrastructure in every district in the country due to geographic and population factors. This, she said, opened room for other sanitation solutions to be rolled out.

Incoming EWS head, Ednick Msweli, said the award was an honour for them and an affirmation that they were moving in the right direction as a municipality.

SIWI’s Karen Meijer congratulated EWS, saying the municipality had outdone itself to claim the award.

The South African Local Government Association (Salga) has also congratulated EWS, saying the award was a “resounding game changer for South Africa and the entire African continent. – SAnews.gov.za

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SA STUDENTS FROM UCT WIN PRESTIGIOUS INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION AWARD


A team of South African students from the University of Cape Town (UCT) has won a Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) People’s Choice Award for their low-cost fire detection device for shack-dwellers. The Global Social Venture Competition is held annually at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States.

The UCT team and their project, Khusela – a low-cost fire detection device for informal housing – was named one of the top five initiatives worldwide. The project won the GSVC People’s Choice Award in the global round in April, first competing against hundreds of entries from around the world and and finally winning against 18 finalists in the last round.

The GSVC is the world’s pre-eminent social business plan competition providing aspiring entrepreneurs with mentoring, exposure, and prize money to transform their business ideas into a positive real-world impact.

Khusela, which means “protect”, is a low-cost fire detection device and integrated alert service designed for shack-dwellers worldwide. In South Africa, there are on average ten shack fires per day with someone dying in a shack fire every other day, according

to Abahlalibase Mjondolo, a South African shack-dwellers’ movement.

“Our proactive early-warning system networks individuals within communities and with the authorities to mitigate the loss of life and property caused by shack fires, a global human tragedy,” said electrical engineer Francois Petousis, co-founder of Khusela, who is currently undertaking a Masters degree in inclusive innovation at the UCT Graduate School of Business (GSB).

“There are a billion shack/slum-dwellers across the globe, and that is set to soar to 1.4-billion by 2020,” Petousis said in a statement issued by the school.

The team entered the international competition through the UCT Student Social Venture Programme, which is hosted by Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the UCT GSB Net Impact Chapter.

The Khusela team entered the international competition through the UCT Student Social Venture Programme (SSVP), which is hosted by the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the UCT GSB Net Impact Chapter. The programme was created to improve

the quality and performance of African universities at global social business plan competitions. The Bertha Centre is the Southern African regional outreach partner for GSVC and hosts the initial round of the competition.

Khusela is not the first South African team that has passed through the programme. Last year, graduates of the Reel Gardening team won both the social innovation prize and the Hult Prize London regional competitions, beating 50 other universities, and was one of six teams globally to compete in the prestigious Clinton Global Initiative.

The next step for the Khusela team will include making use of recent funding received from the Technology Innovation Agency and UCT to fully develop, test and roll out about 2 000 devices in a pilot project in South Africa.

SAinfo reporter and University of Cape Town

Our proactive early-warning system networks individuals within communities and with the authorities to mitigate the loss of life and property caused by shack fires, a global human tragedy.

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INTERNATIONAL INNOVATIONS

The Digital Pen Technology (DPT) is one of the major innovations of the last few years. It has been piloted in different projects in South Africa, Malawi, Namibia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. Remote areas in each country were selected where the technology was used to collect information.

After evaluating all these pilots, the SADC Epidemiology and Informatics Subcommittee (EIS) recommended adopting DPT in the region as a tool to enhance animal disease surveillance. The DPT has since been implemented on a slightly larger scale in four SADC countries, namely Angola, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. Kenya soon followed suit, following the initial piloting of the project in 2009.

Objectives of the Project

The primary objective of the Digital Pen Technology is to improve disease surveillance and reporting which would ultimately lead to increased output and productivity through animal disease and pests control. The project is an improvement of the existing Veterinary Services reporting system which is slow and labour intensive.

DIGITAL PEN FOR KENYA’S VETERINARY SERVICES

By Dr R.M. Murithi, Ministry of Livestock Development, Kenya

The digital pens are wireless, taking advantage of Bluetooth technology and send the capturer’s notes or drawings directly to a server through a cell phone. The technology aids in the rapid collection, transmission and processing of data.

The digital pen system will provide Kenya with a reliable electronic reporting system that will ensure improved animal disease control decision-making based on up-to-date information and rapid response.

Through its capacity for early detection of disease outbreak and subsequent control, the system will enable Kenya’s Department of Veterinary Services to work cost-effectively as diseases will be managed at farm level.

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In addition, it will also provide quick feedback to the district animal service providers, unlike previously when it took a month to receive disease reports from field officers. The improvements will increase confidence in the Veterinary Services, facilitating access to international markets for livestock products.

How the technology works

A digital pen is a battery-operated writing instrument that allows the user to digitally capture a handwritten note or drawing. The pen looks like a regular ball-point pen and uses a special digitised paper to digitally capture what has been written. The digital pens are wireless, taking advantage of Bluetooth technology and send the capturer’s notes or drawings directly to a server through a cell phone. The technology aids in the rapid collection, transmission and processing of data.

The project is currently running in 29 districts of Kenya out of 284 districts. Every District Veterinary Officer (DVO) is provided with a digital pen, digitised paper which is replenished when the need arises, a smart phone and a computer and modem with airtime. Maintenance of equipment is carried out by the Department of Veterinary Sevices in conjunction with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.

The Impact of the project

Since implementation, the Digital Pen Technology has resulted in a number of positive outcomes linked to it. These

include submission of disease data in real time which has reduced the reporting period from two months to 10 to 20 seconds. This has, in turn, resulted in rapid interventions.

Analysis of data on the number and types of disease outbreaks recorded is done on a daily basis at the Veterinary Headquarters in Kabete. Feedback bulletins are prepared and disseminated on a quarterly basis. Responses which are needed promptly are done as required. There is instant proof of delivery of disease reports and a reduced scope of data misuse since it is secured.

This innovation is contributing to key result areas of sustainability of the livestock sector as an enterprise, and eradication of livestock diseases and pests.

In the months of August to December 2011, fourteen outbreaks of foot and mouth disease were detected and reported through DPT. As a result, the department was able to respond promptly with necessary disease control measures such as quarantine and vaccinations, thereby minimizing the spread. Between the months of January to March, 355 cases of notifiable diseases were reported and necessary actions were taken. During the same period, 1 360 zero reports were submitted which was evidence that districts were free of targeted diseases such as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, Rift Valley Fever, Rinderpest, Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) and Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia.

Challenges and Lessons

Major challenges encountered in the adoption and launch of the Digital Pen Technology include financial resources (in excess of USD 2,280,424) needed for procurement of equipment, training of personnel and a roll out to all districts, as well as network and internet fluctuations.

To deal with these challenges, the Department has partnered with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations and holds awareness and training workshops with over 100 officers and trained staff.

With regards to internet coverage and power supply, some of the districts which were expected to report using the Digital Pen Technology, were too far off in areas not properly connected with the internet. This is a challenge which was solved by providing the offices with modems and airtime. As regards the challenge of digital pens running out of battery power while officers are in the field, the solution involved writing down important information in notebooks and transferring the information when back in the office after recharging.

Conclusion

Technology use can be adopted to speed up information flow. Reporting can be made in real time which aids decision-making based on receipt of timely and up-to-date information. It is possible to develop a fast, resilient, secure and a more advanced solution with proof of report delivery that could be accessed securely from anywhere in the world via internet connection by being open to the new ideas.

This innovation is contributing to key result areas of sustainability of the livestock sector as an enterprise, and eradication of livestock diseases and pests.

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INTERNATIONAL INNOVATIONS

A REMOTE CONTROLLED WATER PUMPING SYSTEM FROM THAILAND

Background

The Provincial Waterworks Authority of Thailand (PWA) is responsible for providing and distributing water to the public in 74 provinces of Thailand, with about 3.8 million connections. PWA’s administrative structure comprises 10 regional offices and 234 branches. Regional Office 5 is in charge of water supply in the seven southern provinces of Trang, Satun, Phatthalung, Songkhla, Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat which account for about 268 000 connections. It also supervises 20 PWA branches.

The Problem

The southern part of Thailand, often referred to as “Southern Fire” which includes the three southern provinces of Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and four districts of Songkhla, namely, Jana, Nathawee, Tepa and Sabayoyare is characterised by ongoing unrest. The high prevalence of violent incidents amongst these southern provinces sharing their border with Malaysia is mainly attributed to unresolved conflicts and manifests itself in various ways including ambushing, attacks, arson, bombing and general chaos perpetrated by separatist militants.

Over the years, this situation has had major negative implications on PWA’s operations, particularly due to security concerns. PWA

staff could not access raw water pumping stations that are mostly located in remote risky areas, close to rivers far away from communities.

In addition, with the high incidence of violence by separatist militants in the area, soldiers and police deployed by authorities setup roadblocks to control the movement of people, including PWA staff. The inability of PWA’s staff to visit pumping stations and perform water production and distribution duties resulted in water shortages which acutely affected critical services such as hospitals, schools and also households.

The Innovation

In the past, water pumps used by PWA to pump and distribute water to consumers was done manually by production staff as part of their duties to control and maintain PWA assets. Their other responsibilities included closely monitoring the systems to avoid possible errors or minimize the impact thereof as well as ensuring quick technical response to avert crisis. Management and maintenance of raw water pumps, treatment plants and water distribution stations was risky and particularly difficult because of the vast distances between them. Following extensive deliberations by PWA Regional Office 5’s authorities, a research was conducted on the possibility and

benefits of developing a remote control set of water supply pumping for use in lower southern Thailand’s risky areas. A distinguishing feature of the remote control set of water supply pumping system was the innovative use of a mobile phone to control the pumping system.

The idea behind this innovation was informed by the statement by PWA’s Regional Office 5’s director that “Perpetrators can detonate unrest through a cell phone. Why can’t PWA use a cell phone to control the water supply system?”

The Regional Office then conducted a feasibility study to introduce the remote-control communication technology as a solution to the aforementioned challenges.

The initial phase of the innovative project started with a collection of pumping system and water management principle data in each of PWA’s branches involved in the project.

Thereafter, the Production Control Technology Section, working in collaboration with the PWA Regional Office 5 staff who are based in the risky areas, designed, constructed and installed the remote-control set.

Inputs from members of staff who are based in the risky areas as well as data collected

This project was a 2014 UN Public Service Awards finalist and the article was first published in the Commonwealth Innovations Review

By MR Tanet, Provincial Waterworks of Thailand

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from the branches played a critical role in ensuring that the system design and modification as well as the programme for the machine in each station definitely meet the specifications of practitioners.

The Impact

The introduction of a remote-control water supply pumping system in risky parts of southern Thailand had a major positive impact in terms of water distribution to citizens:

• PWA is able to continue with the efficient provision of water without any disruption regardless of ongoing violence and insurgency in areas where PWA’s pumping stations or water treatment plants are located. The non-disruption of water supply is of fundamental importance, particularly when it comes to vital services such as healthcare in hospitals, education in schools and households. A survey on people satisfaction revealed high levels of satisfaction amongst people living in the problematic areas. They also appreciated the project and encouraged its implementation in other risky areas too.

• The project resulted in risks being drastically minimized as PWA officials can now use a remote control set to control water supply instead of having to travel to risky areas in the south, particularly at night.

• The project has improved water management and ensured that it is operated with full efficiency.

• New technology is introduced and applied in the water production process.

• In terms of human resources development, the project has ensured the empowerment of PWA officials with more knowledge on innovation and creative thinking. With the prospects for future implementation of the system in other regions, PWA officials will enjoy more exposure to innovation while continuing with the development of the system.

• The project helps boost up the morale of PWA’s staff working in difficult environments in areas in southern Thailand.

Sustainability

The first remote-control set that was

assembled using suitable instruments, was installed at an actual site to test the set’s operability in a real situation, in line with practitioners’ (staff) requirements. At the same time, work was ongoing on a newly invented remote-control set to test and improve it to enhance the system’s stability and high efficiency. Finally, due to steady tests and development of the system, the result is satisfactory to both system designers and staff operating in risky areas.

The innovation has drastically reduced the dangers associated with traveling long distances in under highly risky conditions between a production station (water treatment plant) and a raw water pumping station (low-pressure pumping station). For this reason, PWA received a best practices award for quality development of service to the people from the Office of the Public Sector Development Commission, Thailand (OPDC) in the year 2013. This award is given to the government offices for promoting the development of their service to people.

Challenges

Despite the countless benefits that were realized following the implementation of the remote-control water pumping set, the

project continues to have its own fair share of challenges.

For instance, due to high frequent occurrences of acts of violence and insurgency in Thailand’s 3 southern border provinces, the police and military officers concerned are often forced to cut off and interrupt the mobile phone signal, which is used to command an operation of water pumping and communications. For this reason, PWA’s control system is unable to work regularly and PWA’s staff cannot travel to the area to install a remote-control set due to an untrustworthy situation.

However, PWA’s inventors are making great effort to develop a new transmitting method like a wireless signal in order to solve the limitation of a remote control system.

Conclusion

The introduction of the remote-control communication technology has gone a long way in mitigating the dangers associated with traveling to conflict areas. This development has received good cooperation from PWA staff of other sections, other government agencies and local communities.

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THE LEADERSHIP (R)EVOLUTION: CREATING A HIGH PERFORMANCE ORGANISATIONAuthors: Christo Nel and Nolan BeudekerClassification: ISBN: 978-0-7063-7745-3 Publishers: Knowres Publishing (Pty) Ltd Release Date: 2011

REVIEWS

Creating a sustainable High Performance Organisation (HPO) is one of the primary leadership challenges facing any leader. This has always been the case in any era and organisation, but the nature of this challenge has undergone a revolution since the 1960s. The world has evolved. The emerging generation of talented people and future leaders increasingly rejects authoritarian, command-and-control-style leaders as the norm.

The focus on discipline and the delivery of high performance has not decreased. In the globalised world, this demand is increasing. The difference is that leaders and organisations that delivery sustainable competitiveness have discovered that they have to place equal emphasis on performance

and PEOPLE; being competitive AND caring; being courageous AND consistent. The reality is that your organisation is first and foremost a human system, so it needs to be designed and run in ways that are fit and friendly for human life.

In order to achieve this new way of being, it is important that all leaders in your organisation, regardless of their seniority, focus on the behaviours and actions that will generate energy and THEREFORE productivity in the organisation. Using South African case studies and examples benchmarked against global best practices, the areas of focus covered in the book include:

• The way you execute your strategy • The way you organise your people in

order to achieve your strategy• How you recruit, retain and manage

your talent• How you reward and celebrate their

success• The way you measure your efforts to

achieve your strategy and implement the controls you need to achieve it

• The values you embed that all stakeholders need to buy into

• How you manage the change leadership that is required to make all of this happen.

The essence of this book is that It will require both revolutionary and evolutionary changes to remodel any organisation and adopt the actions and behaviours required from leaders who celebrate High Performance Organisations.

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school of governmentDepartment:National School of GovernmentREPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA

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THE FRUGAL INNOVATORCREATING CHANGE ON A SHOESTRING BUDGET

Author: Charles LeadbeaterClassification: ISBN: 978-113733-537-1 Publishers: Palgrave Macmillan Publication Date: April 2014

REVIEWS

Charles Leadbeater is an independent advisor, best-selling author, award-winning journalist and recognized thought-leader on innovation whose advice is sought by governments, cities and organizations throughout the world. He was awarded the prestigious David Watt Prize for journalism after a distinguished career at the Financial Times, where we was Labour Editor, Industrial Editor and Tokyo Bureau Chief all by the age of 32, before leaving to become Assistant Editor at The Independent.

Leadbeater went on to become a key advisor to Tony Blair’s policy team at the Downing Street Policy Unit and the Department of Trade and Industry, specializing in the impact of the Internet and the knowledge driven economy, helping to shape government policy across a number of

fronts. He is a senior research associate with Nesta, the UK’s innovation fund, a trustee of the Nominet Trust, the social tech investment fund and has a long track record of involvement in social innovation, not least as chairman of the social enterprise Apps 4 Good. He was a co-founder of Participle, the public service design agency and is an associate of the Centre for London.

In this book, Leadbeater introduces Frugal Innovation as a powerful new model for creating solutions for a world struggling with rapid population growth, exploding demand from consumers on modest incomes, and global pressure to minimize environmental damage. This new wave of innovation started in the developing world but is spreading globally.

This inspiring book provides an

insight into what promises to become a worldwide movement as large companies in developed economies start to learn from entrepreneurs in the developing world, who are coming up with radical solutions to pressing challenges. Frugal innovators follow four design principles to create these solutions: ‘lean, simple, clean and social’.

Frugal innovators are devising these new solutions for clean water and energy, affordable housing and health care, because the constraints they work under give them no option but to think radically and challenge conventional wisdom. By unpacking the principles, drivers and methods for frugal innovation, Leadbeater’s analysis and case studies lead to practical ‘how-to’ strategies for applying frugal innovation wherever you work.

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I-TEAMS REPORT: THE TEAMS AND FUNDS MAKING INNOVATION HAPPEN IN GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLDAuthors: Ruth Puttick, Peter Baeck & Philip ColliganClassification: ISBN: 978-184875-153-8 Publishers: Nesta Publication Date: June 2014

Ruth Puttick, Peter Baeck & Philip Colligan

The teams and funds making innovation happen in governments around the world

Nesta, an independent UK-based charity and Bloomberg Philanthropies have published this report on 20 innovation teams and funds from six continents. The in-depth analysis of the structures, approaches, impacts, successes, limitations and key lessons for governments looking to emulate these efforts is a must read. The report draws from desk research, site visits, over 80 interviews, and a survey to analyse the following twenty i-teams:• Centro de Innovación Social• Investing in Innovation Fund (i3)• Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics• New Orleans Innovation Delivery Team• New York City Innovation Zone (iZone)• NYC Center for Economic Opportunity• Open Mexico• Barcelona Urban Lab• Behavioural Insights Team• Centre for Public Service Innovation• Fonds d’expérimentation pour la

jeunesse• La 27e Région• MindLab• Nesta Innovation Lab• Sitra• VINNOVA• Performance Management & Delivery

Unit (PEMANDU)• PS21 Office• Seoul Innovation Bureau• The Australian Centre for Social

Innovation (TACSI)

Notable aspects from the analytical part of the report include discussions on location in government and proximity to executive powers, funding sources, size of budgets, approaches to partnerships and collaboration, level of and appetite for risk-taking and how they measure impact.

Key findings

Governments, from national to local, need institutions with dedicated teams and resources to catalyse innovation through deliberate actions, systems and processes.

The 20 i-teams can be grouped into four categories with most teams working across two or more of these categories: • Creating solutions to solve specific

challenges.• Engaging citizens, non-profits and

businesses to find new ideas.• Transforming the processes, skills and

culture of government.• Achieving wider policy and systems

change.

Another important findings is that innovation requires dedicated capacity, specific skills, methods, partnerships, and consistent political support.

Ten recommendations for government leaders who want to create an i-team

include:• The type of i-team you create should

be driven by your ultimate goal.• Forge strong links to executive

power inside government, leveraging internal and external partnerships, resources and insights.

• Build a team with a diverse mix of skills and a combination of insiders and outsiders to government.

• Develop a lean funding model for the team itself, and attract secure funds from partners for implementation.

• Continually demonstrate and communicate the i-team’s unique value.

• Employ explicit methods, drawing on cutting edge innovation skills and tools, alongside strong project management to get work done.

• Have a bias towards action and aim for rapid experimentation, combining early wins with longer term impacts.

• Be clear on handovers early on, tasking implementation and delivery to government.

• Relentlessly measure impacts, quantify successes and be sure to stop what isn’t working.

• Celebrate success and share credit.

The i-teams report can be downloaded from www.theiteams.org

Pierre Schoonraad

CELEBRATING SOUTH AFRICA’S PARTICIPATION IN AND CO-CHAIRING OF THE

Open Government Partnership

www.opengovpartnership.org/country/south-africa

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