Technology for Results Using Smartphones to Verify Results and Serve the Public in Vietnam ’ s Water Sector

As Vietnam makes the transition from paper-based and manual information systems to digital ones, the World Bank’s Vietnam Program for Results (PfoR) rural water supply and sanitation (RWSS) operations have been pioneering the use of smartphones to verify results on the ground, address customer concerns, and provide information to the public. Because the information collected through smartphones is pinpointed (geospatially referenced), it can be collected much more accurately at the level of households, clinics, schools, and community locations that are the target of the World Bank-backed water and sanitation operations. The data can also be better aggregated to detect patterns, address problems, and monitor and evaluate results about the quality and quantity of water and sanitation services. A webbased platform has been established to disclose water and sanitation program planning documents and resources to the public, along with a call center to deal with customer questions and concerns. The pioneering efforts point the way to wider applications in other sectors beyond water and sanitation, such as road infrastructure or health. WATER KNOWLEDGE NOTE

Two water and sanitation projects in Vietnam are pioneering the use of smartphones.
• The 2012 project focuses on increasing sustained access to services and improving planning and monitoring and evaluation in the water and sanitation sector (World Bank 2012).• The 2015 project focuses on improving hygiene behavior and increasing and sustaining access to rural sanitation and water supply in rural areas (World Bank 2015).
The two projects build on each other.While the first covers 8 provinces, the second includes 21 provinces.Both projects, as Program for Results (PforR) operations, link the disbursement of funds directly to the achievement of specific program results. 1   The projects are designed to help meet the government of Vietnam's National Target Program (NTP) on New Rural Development for 2010-20, which plans for significant focused investments in rural areas to reduce inequality and promote growth (World Bank 2015).Three agencies-the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the Ministry of Health (MoH), and the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET)-play important roles in the delivery and monitoring of the projects.

The Application of Smartphones to Verify Water and Sanitation Results
Under the PforR, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) reports results about the quality and quantity of water and sanitation arrangements, which are then audited and verified by an independent verification agent (IVA).A government agency with the mandate and credibility to conduct NTP audits (World Bank 2012, 24), State Audit of Vietnam (SAV), was selected to verify program results, using protocols agreed with the World Bank. 2 SAV is supported by a field work consulting company (named as IVA).Together, they use a desk review and physical inspection to verify that all target indicators have been met before World Bank funds can be disbursed to the participating provinces.
These target indicators are called disbursement-linked indicators (DLI) and they play a critical role in PforR operations.They provide the government with incentives to achieve key program milestones and improve performance.
In this case, the use of smartphones to collect data is required.
For both PforRs, since 2012, the IVA has been successfully sampling tens of thousands of households every year using smartphones (including GPS coordinates and photos), and the data is on an online database (see figure 1).The data is aggregated at a regional level and then assessed by the IVA.Appendix A presents sample questions from the questionnaire administered to households by the IVA.
The verification is supported by a platform offered by ONA, a Kenya-based data and technology company.The ONA platform enables data capture, upload, and data visualization and provides a cloud server space for data storage.
The IVA provides a report to SAV and MARD containing details of its survey findings and an assessment of the actual results achieved in the period, based on eligibility criteria and agreed protocols.This report is transmitted to the World Bank, together with the disbursement request from MARD (see World Bank 2015, 62).Once the World Bank accepts the verification results, it disburses funds.
The World Bank has found that SAV (together with the IVA) has provided adequate oversight of the survey teams and reporting process (World Bank 2015, 22).
The innovative requirement to collect data with smartphones as part of the PforRs seems to have set clear incentives for data collection.About 12,000 households are sampled and physically verified per year, based on hardware owned by the IVA.

The Transparency Platform and Call Center
The RWSS PforR Program has supported two other innovative uses of information technology (IT).
A Transparency Platform has been installed for each of the eight provinces that are the focus of the first RWSS PforR.
It pulls in all relevant information across the project cycle, from planning to implementation to monitoring and evaluation, such as annual provincial program plans and annual implementation performance reports (an example of one such performance report can be found via the following url: pl.pforr.vn).It also collects and reports provincial data collected through geographic information systems (GIS) (World Bank 2012, 65).
A call center has been established, which customers can access by smartphone.A summary of the questions and complaints received through this call center and the call center's responses to them are published on the Transparency Platform (Beneficiary Feedback), increasing government accountability.In 2018, the call center handled 87 questions and complaints on water and sanitation services.Relevant agencies have largely addressed the issues and the responses have been published on the Platform (see figure 2).The call center can be reached within Vietnam via 18008085.

Emerging Lessons
With Vietnam's establishment in September 2018 of a National Steering Committee for e-Governance led by the prime minister, the institutional and technical success factors for digital transformation are receiving greater attention.Vietnam's information systems have tended to rely on paper-based reporting, particularly as it moves up the chain of reporting and consolidation from the commune levels.Routine commune contributions continue to revert to paper-based forms-practices that may be hard to disrupt or transform in the absence of the correct incentives.
The application of smartphones for verification of results by the RWSS PforRs represents a concrete and sustained case of using smartphone technology for frontline validation of data and feedback from customers.It does not yet represent a mainstreaming of this technology within the bureaucracy, given that implementation is conducted by a third-party private entity.The experience does demonstrate, however, that well-targeted smartphone use can be achieved, contracted directly by government.
The verification of results has been far more targeted, has been subject to clear annual deliverables, and has benefited from the expertise of external contractors.Given that verification had never been done before, it was easier to introduce something new.The cost efficiencies also appealed to SAV.

FIGURE 1 .
FIGURE 1. Household Water Supply and Sanitation Data Collected by the IVA with Smartphones

New technology platforms need to have a strong institutional champion.
The framework and incentives provided by the PforR laid the foundation and helped make the verification process a success, but the buyin from two agencies was also crucial: SAV and the National Centre for Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (NCERWASS), as a cross-cutting administrative organization in MARD that implements state management of rural water supply and environmental sanitation.3Thebiggest value added for the World Bank may be to help design and demonstrate robust and versatile platforms.While technology is clearly secondary to getting the people and process parts of the equation right, getting the technology wrong may in turn adversely disrupt the reform process, strengthening opposition or perpetuating the status quo. 2.
The question is whether more versatile technology-such as modular cloud internet access at the even more decentralized level of communes (including wider and faster communelevel mobile access)-together with institutional drivers can now set the stage for a new generation of more successful integrated platforms.The experience with digital systems under the RWSS suggests several lessons for moving forward FIGURE 2. The Transparency Platform Source: pl.pforr.vn/web/minhbach/home.in the design of a new generation of integrated systems built on strong institutional and technical due diligence:1.

Continued application needs to be linked to strong recurrent incentives.
The annual PforR verification provided one such mechanism.Annual budgets should be closely aligned to adequate digital processes and linked to clear incentives and institutional roles.Ultimately, the modernization of government processes should have entailed benefits for the end users and society overall.3

. While digital data integration is a laudable goal, the incentives to achieve this are often too diffuse. Clear
If well designed and implemented, building digital information flows for decentralized basic infrastructure and natural resources management can also take a page from disruptive technology trends in telemedicine.Doctors, engineers, conservationists, and other experts cannot visit every field site, but they can review digital records, helping provide not only oversight but greater responsiveness to communities.The list of agencies and provinces using smartphone technology to capture frontline public service delivery information in Vietnam is growing.The Department of Roads of Vietnam (DRVN) is closely working with Provincial Departments of Transport (PDoT) to capture road condition information data as part of the Roads PfoR.The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) is looking at smartphones to assess forest and mangrove conditions by location.These initiatives, while in their early stages, indicate the more widespread using of this technology for the public sector, and the transformation of Vietnam from a largely paper-based to an increasingly digital government.NOTES1For more on the Program for Results approach, see www .worldbank.org/en/programs/program-for-results -financing.2WhileSAVserved primarily served as a financial auditor, the World Bank(2012, 29)notes that it has recently also gained experience as a RWSS technical performance auditor.