Faster, Easier and Smarter Service Delivery: This is how Jordan is Localizing the SDGs

January 16, 2020

Tanmiah streamlines decision making and project delivery

Amman- An ambitious project to automate and streamline development efforts and projects by Jordan’s governorates will be launched in the first quarter of 2020. The Tanmiah System will integrate government’s planning process with project implementation through the automated tracking of goals and related measures while providing a means for public feedback.

Implemented jointly by the Ministry of Interior and the United Nations Development Programme’s Decentralisation and Local Development Support Programme with support from the European Union, Tanmiah is expected to make the government’s decision-making process, on the national and local levels, tangible and transparent.

The overall long-term goal of Tanmiah is to provide systems and guidelines for the eventual application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and business intelligence to support planning and project implementation at both the national and governorate levels across all sectors in Jordan.

The Tanmiah system collects and analyses 400 economic and social data about each governorate and connects them to a geographical information system to help decision-makers in making the right decisions based on the specific needs and funds available for each location.

According to Ahmad Al Tayyeb, Local Development Liaison Officer at the Ministry of Interior, building decisions based on concrete data replaces the rather unscientific decision-making process that was based on requests and personal favours. The main indicators were collected for the health and education sectors where quick and strategic decision were constantly needed to improve those vital sectors.

Beyond the presentation of data as points on a map, Tanmiah incorporates business intelligence into the decision-making process, to enable decision-making support to transform information into actionable knowledge.

“We discovered that sometimes a governorate would require building a new hospital. When we analysed the data, we discovered that this governorate doesn’t need a new hospital, but rather a number of doctors in specific fields,” he said.

“We also noticed that some governorates requested a new high school. Once we analysed the number of schools in that specific location, we discovered that the shortage can be met by opening new school rooms in an existing school,” he added. “Imagine the speed at which such a problem was solved and the funds that were saved.”

The numbers in the education sector, for example, became more specific and mirror the precise status in Jordan’s governorates. The numbers are analysed by the system tools to create a wholesome picture that specified action points and expenditure as well as funding sources for each governorate. Some action points, explained Al Tayyeb, will be carried out by the Local Council, others by different ministries and the governorates.

The UNDP is providing technical expertise for the government in developing the Tanmia tool and socio-economic and services database as part of its Decentralisation and Local Development Support Programme. In addition to the development of IT systems, the Programme aims to strengthen the capacities of the Governorate-based structures in strategic planning, budget analysis and monitoring through the training of public officials and supporting government in drafting by-laws that regulate the procedures and utilization of Tanmia tool.

UNDP Resident Representative Sara Ferrer-Olivella hailed the cooperation with Jordanian government in developing an efficient and transparent regional coordination and planning system. She stressed that the project will bring concrete benefits to the government and citizens through better-informed local development interventions and the involvement of people in the decision-making.

“Tanmia provides a comprehensive overview of the socio-economic and services situation in a particular area of Jordan, empowering officials on a municipal, governorate and national levels to identify the most pressing challenges and take action to address them. It also shows the bottlenecks delaying the implementation of local projects, enabling government to take quick and focused intervention. Finally, Tanmia will allow Jordanian citizens to review public projects and participate in decisions that affect their daily lives,” she said.

Tanmiah is expected to improve the level of government services, as well as planning and decision-making processes in governorates and municipalities. It is also meant to instill transparency and objectivity while documenting the planning process and identifying priorities and development needs among different sectors at the governorate and municipal levels. This will achieve complementarity and coordinate efforts between projects and ensure the effective use of the existing government facilities.

Tanmiah is incorporated of four components: The Regional Information System which provides the foundation for representing about 400 Socio-demographic measures through a Geographic Information System, down to the local level. It thereby makes it possible for national and local administrations to take needs-based decisions.

“Of the 400 indicators, we will create an annual report that showcases and analyses the shortcomings and goals for 21 sectors such as health, education, power etcetera. The report connects the dots, provides actionable precise points and can deliver both general and specific information for decision-makers,” Hazem Haddad, Local Development Liaison Officer at the Ministry of Interior said.

The second component is the Project Management System which provides a tracking capability at the project level in the form of a dashboard of indicators related to the project’s timeline, phases and budget. This component helps the decision-makers at the local level (governors, assistants and executive councils) to follow up on the progress of projects implementation at the local level on a daily basis.

This system according to Hadaad will provide data on projects’ progress and completion and explain where and how projects are lagging to provide the quickest intervention.

It also includes a Public Relations Management (PRM) system which gives citizens the ability to submit service requests and Government Representatives the ability to view, prioritise and classify requests. The PRM component communicates to the public proposed programs so that they can provide immediate feedback over the Internet or via SMS and track the progress of a certain project or offer feedback on local investments, such as for schools or hospitals. It also gives the public with an opportunity to review proposed projects and solutions and provide feedback before they are implemented.