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Rudo Grace Gwata-Charamba Correspondent
Worldwide, the topic of service delivery has created a lot of tension, with communities almost always complaining about poor delivery of services; an element that creates inconveniences and introduces risks to their lives.

Such unsatisfactory service delivery has been generally attributed to several factors encompassing incompetence and arrogance among officials, corruption and negligence.

This piece focuses on the public sector, which is collectively the world’s largest service provider, signifying its impact on millions of people and the need to consistently find means to improve the quality of its service delivery.

Both literature and experiential evidence show that, against this background of great dissatisfaction among stakeholders, there is a pervasive and growing need for transformation in the public sector, notably change in attitude among civil servants, to facilitate improved service delivery.

Such transformation entails a change from a culture of business as usual to results orientation, team work and accountability for results.

Use of the Rapid Results Approach (RRA), a tool developed by a United States-based firm, Schaffer Consulting, has proved to be one of the best strategies to achieve such transformation and improve service delivery within the shortest possible time-frame.

Professor George Krhoda, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Water in Kenya is on record saying about the RRA: “It is the best tool I have found for changing the culture of implementation in the civil service”.

Using the approach, the period for issuing a passport in Kenya was reduced, through business re-engineering, from more than three months to 20 days and, subsequently to 14 days.

Similarly, the approach has been specifically cited as the strategy at the core of the transformation of public sector performance and the achievement of some of the most dramatic results in several sectors and nations worldwide, notably in Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Cameron and Malaysia, among other nations.

The RRA, also an effective tool for institutionalising Results-Based Management (RBM), is a results-focused learning process aimed at jump-starting major change efforts and enhancing organisational performance.

It entails breaking down long-term change efforts (goals or projects) into a series of small-scale results-producing and momentum-building components, within a very short period of time, typically 100 days or less.

These small projects, termed Rapid Results Initiatives (RRIs), form part of a series or cycle designed to unleash the creativity and capacity of teams to achieve strategic goals that include accelerated growth, increased productivity, engaged staff, significant cost savings as well as sustainable business practices.

The approach hinges on staff working as a team and ensuring that everyone assumes accountability for the results.

In each cycle, challenging, concrete objectives are set and the team coordinates efforts to bring about dramatic, visible and measurable changes in the target entity, termed results which ordinarily refer or lead to authentic improvements in the lives or conditions of stakeholders.

In the process, managers continually adopt and refine their overall implementation strategies, based on evidence of what works and what does not work on the ground, thus improving performance and subsequently, service delivery,

The approach seeks to unlock latent capacity and potential within organisations, create an environment for innovation by incentivising and empowering teams to “think outside the box,” set challenging or stretching, yet achievable goals using existing resources and capacities.

This leads to the creation of a sense of urgency, collaboration among team members, experimentation and discovery of new ideas, focus on result while strengthening accountability, ownership of projects plus the associated results and commitment.

With time, the attitudes of civil servants improve as they are motivated to explore their full potential, energy and creativity, overcome general inertia as well as eliminate inefficiencies; all leading to improved service delivery.

In Kenya, the implementation of RRIs has made a widespread difference and offered lasting solutions in the public sector.

In fact, the government has received international recognition and several awards for its focus on service delivery with transformation of the public sector performance and the achievement of some of the most dramatic results being specifically attributed to the use of the RRA.

Improvements in service delivery were recorded in several areas encompassing the processing and issuance of passports, national identity cards and birth certificates, company registration, city transport management and access to clean water.

For example, when 100-day RRIs were first launched in 2005, travel time on main roads was seriously affected by congestion during peak hours due to failed signage, constrained pedestrian space and poor pavement conditions around major bus stops, was reduced by 30 percent within 100 days.

In the same context, the time to register businesses with the State Law Office was reduced from over one month to two working days.

Relatedly, staff and customer satisfaction levels increased by 80 percent within the same period.
Accordingly, RRIs were implemented in practically every sector where government services were targeted for improvement.

The approach ultimately became a way of working in government institutions that include the central government ministries, state corporations, local authorities, and universities.

The Kenyan experience also showed lack of resources was a non-issue as the associated levels of motivation helped to overcome it.

For instance, staff readily opted to use public transport to get around the projects when funds for private transport were unavailable.

In Zimbabwe, both literature and experiential evidence show that there was marked improvement in the speed of issuing passports, birth certificates and clearing backlogs in 2005 when RRIs (then termed Quickwins) were implemented, thus providing evidence of the efficacy of the approach within the local environment.

This first phase of Quickwins covered the Registrar-General’s Office, specifically the issuance of passports and birth certificate as well as the Pension Department, namely accessing of documents and payment processes.

Given the significant challenges reported in relation to the offices plus service delivery in general, it may be worthwhile to reconsider use of this approach with great potential, incorporating best practices and lessons learned from prior implementation. This is likely to lead to significantly improved service delivery in line with the experiences of other nations in Africa and beyond.

Likewise, Madagascar, successfully used the RRA to turn around a declining economy, where the GDP had fallen 13 percent, with an agricultural sector that had been devastated by two powerful cyclones, in 2004, reducing the nation to near famine.

RRA processes helped to achieve immediate results in reviving production and restoring public services that had been suspended. Rice production increased from 2,5 tonnes per hectare to 4 tonnes in less than one year.

The processes also facilitated participatory, decentralised and efficient service delivery and capacity building that effectively embraced learning and continuous improvement.

After learning about the successful experiences of Madagascar and Kenya, Rwanda also adopted the RRA and successfully improved its service delivery as well as behavioural change among stakeholders with enhanced performance among public servants.

Earlier attempts in Rwanda to increase performance through the use of incentives to public servants had proved to be ineffective.

In Senegal, water connection times were reduced by 50 percent, and a backlog of 308 outstanding connection requests cleared within 100-day RRI cycles.

Relatedly, the approach was also employed successfully in anti-corruption, public sector governance initiatives as well as public procurement in Cameron.

The RRA is, therefore, an extremely robust and versatile proven tool for improved performance and service delivery, particularly for accelerating the implementation of projects as well as the clearance of backlogs, capacity building for the achievement of results, as well as enhancing creativity.

In addition, the approach can be effectively used for problem identification, stakeholder engagement, course correction as well as a way to incentivise staff performance.

With such immense potential, the tool could be what Zimbabwe needs to address the equally immense challenges and urgent needs relating to service delivery, notably in the processing of passports, anti-corruption programmes as well as addressing issues relating to food security plus water and sanitation.

Dr Rudo Grace Gwata-Charamba is an author, development project/ programme management consultant and researcher with a special interest in Results-Based Management (RBM), Governance and Leadership. She can be contacted via email: [email protected]