All Projects

BSDU: Data-driven government services in Pakistan

Bahawalpur Service Delivery Unit

“Information aggregated is available to the public to analyse government performance, hopefully creating a culture of transparency.” — Imran Baloch, BSDU

6000

pregnant women and children registered and monitored for health care provision

143

female health workers in Punjab Province tracked through the BSDU

Start date
July 2014
End date
September 2015
Period: 15 months

Issue

How can we improve service delivery in communities and regions that are under-resourced and prone to destabilising conflict?

The winner of the Global Innovation Competition 2014, Bahawalpur Service Delivery Unit (BSDU) argues that a key part of the answer is the development of data-driven performance management systems for government.

Project

The BSDU project is led by Imran Baloch, who works in government as a District Coordination Officer (DCO) for Bahawalpur district in Punjab.

Working with existing government systems on health and education, the BSDU team is using real-time dashboards and public reviews to influence policy and drive better delivery of services.

It builds on a government pilot of a mobile app and geo-tagging to monitor attendance of teachers and students in public schools, which highlighted where teachers are absent - the project resulted in an increase in attendance by both teachers and students.

BSDU is now expanding on this work to track student enrolment, attendance, the functioning of education facilities and the allocation of funds to support them. The team is also bringing health data into the system, helping to establish a model that of success that is not limited to government champions in one department, but has the potential to be scaled up across the province.

Partner

The project is a partnerships between the Bahawalpur district in Punjab and Technology for People Initiative, an applied research centre focused on designing innovative solutions for problems in the public sector.