Enabling governments to deliver for their people using digital technologies
Enabling governments to deliver for their people using digital technologies
Enabling governments to deliver for their people using digital technologies
Enabling governments to deliver for their people using digital technologies
Enabling governments to deliver for their people using digital technologies
Governments are under more pressure than ever to provide basic services like reliable roads and decent healthcare. Recent advances in technology can enable governments to achieve these aims. MSC is enabling governments in Asia and Africa to unlock this potential and deliver for their people.
Our smart payments reform for Odisha’s urban livelihoods program, MUKTA, led to:
Reduction in payment delays to beneficiaries.
Reduction in the number of approvals
Idle funds sitting in bank accounts
Our reforms to the subsidy claim and settlement process for India’s food subsidy program, PDS, led to:
Digital submission of cost sheets and claims
Reduction in the turnaround time for issuing cost sheets and subsidy releases
MSC is a boutique consulting firm that has, for 25 years, pushed the world towards meaningful financial, social, and economic inclusion. We develop innovative solutions in digital governance, with a focus on public financial management reform. Through technology, we aim to maximise welfare, reduce administrative burden, and enhance accountability.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the state government of Odisha launched a pioneering urban employment scheme, MUKTA.
Launched in 2000, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) aims to improve rural connectivity across India.
India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) is the largest food subsidy programme in the world, benefitting over 800 million people.
The Social Security & Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SSEPD) department of the government of Odisha provides grant-in-aid (GiA) to schools that serve children with special needs.
The Nigeria Governor’s Forum (NGF) public finance programme launched the Digital Domestic Resource Mobilization (DDRM) workstream to transform fiscal management and public service delivery across Nigeria’s 36 states.
India has been a pioneer in direct benefit transfer systems thanks to the expansion of financial services, digital identification, and mobile phones.
“We’ve had an amazing experience working with the MSC team. They bring an expertise working in countries like India and other jurisdictions that are federal like Nigeria, working at a state level. They’ve got an amazing team that have an understanding of what DPI is in practice and the application in various sectors… The journey with MSC is just starting. We’ve just completed the first phase of work and we look to build new opportunities beyond the foundation we’ve established today.”
“Earlier, we used to maintain the labor details on paper. Whenever required we had to search for the papers manually. Sometimes the records were misplaced… When the process was made online, we entered the details and saved the data in an organized manner… and could retrieve the details easily and immediately.
“The application helped in boosting our confidence. We became more confident that being a lady we could carry out and complete the technical tasks. Earlier, our husband, son and brother used to use online platforms to complete their tasks. Now we [can do the same].”
Over the past few decades, Governments have made tremendous progress in digitizing PFM Systems. However, there is a need to take a fresh look based on the new ideas and technologies in the PFM domain. We believe that there is a scope for applying some of these digital tools and principles to resolve the challenges in public finance in general and public expenditure in particular.
Using some of these PFM principles and relevant technology tools, MSC has created the ‘PFM Readiness Index’. The index will help decision-makers gauge the maturity of the PFM ecosystem and chart a course for reforming PFM systems, with a focus on public expenditure. The index can also act as a leading indicator to address the plumbing problems in the systems across various levels in Government.
The PFM Readiness Index rates a government system on parameters aligned to four principles: Just-in-time funding, Single source of data, Observability and De-monopolizing access to public funds and services. The rank received by a government agency on a PFM Index will provide a clearer pathway to improved accountability, lower administrative burden, and frictionless expenditure.
The government still struggles with loopholes in payment delivery to states and agencies that work at the last mile. The smart payments solution can enable frictionless expenditure, decrease administrative burden, and increase accountability in their payment processes. This playbook seeks to facilitate the smart payments framework’s practical applicability for various government payments, whether it is government-to-government (G2G) payments, government-to-businesses or contractors (G2B), or government-to-persons (G2P). It will allow them to identify gaps in their current processes and implement smart payments as an effective solution.
It can also be a reference for any government department that wants to automate its payment processes. Access the playbook here.
Leveraging its expertise, MSC is developing toolkits to enable policymakers and practitioners to adopt digital governance solutions. Stay tuned for more details.
We at MicroSave Consulting are enabling governments to serve their people through technology. If you would like to connect with us on implementing smart governance reforms, contact vikram@microsave.net.
