Information Technology Improves Assistance Distribution in Romania
According to Romanian law, if a citizen’s income falls below a certain level, he or she is eligible for financial support from the government. But inefficient systems prolonged the time applicants spent waiting for the assistance.
All of that recently changed.
The AED dot-ORG project helped 62 communities in one county set up technology applications that streamlined and improved the efficiency of the entire process.
Before, getting assistance in these communities was tedious and cumbersome. Much of the information was handwritten, and the documents were hand-delivered to the appropriate office.
”Introducing new technology in local government offices is not just a matter of replacing pen-and-paper forms with keyboards and electronic files,” said , vice president and director of the AED Technology Center. “What we are really doing is finding ways to use technology to improve processes and to increase transparency.”
Time-Consuming Turned Efficient
|
Sibiu County employee Maria Lalu uses technology to help residents access assistance. |
In Romania’s Sibiu County, residents applied for aid by filling out forms at their local City Hall and providing specific documents to verifyinformation about their income. Processing the information took a great deal of time because small towns had a hard time communicating with the county’s administrative center in Sibiu, which approved all of the requests.
Employees from the social services department would take down notes by hand and then make time-consuming trips to the center. There was no accurate count of the number of applications processed during a specific period of time, so there was no way to track important data.
By helping the local towns and the county’s administrative center install computers and connections to the Internet, dot-ORG made the process much more efficient. Where it used to take hours or days to process an application for assistance, it now takes about 30 minutes. The entire system has been improved and the low-income residents of Sibiu County are getting assistance when they need it most.
New software applications have helped social service employees gather more accurate and up-to-date information about the number of applications received, processed and approved. And the county council now has access to that data, which means they can more easily analyze social services figures and develop budgets.
Looking Ahead
Streamlining the assistance-application process has created a ripple effect of positive outcomes. The agencies are able to trim costs by using the more efficient system, and the employees are gaining valuable experience with the technology.
In fact, many employees were introduced to computers and the Internet for the first time through this project. In order to ensure that the technology could be used for years to come, AED has been providing training throughout Sibiu County. The training ranges from basic assistance with using the tools, to specific lessons on how to use the social services software.
This project is the result of a collaborative effort between AED’s dot-ORG project, the Sibiu County Council (local government), one of Romania’s leading software developers, Sobis, and the Peace Corps.
”We have a successful demonstration of this information technology application in one county of Romania,” said Dennis Foote. “The challenge now is to get other counties to adopt it to extend our impact beyond the original project.”
To respond to this challenge, the project’ private sector partner, Sobis, has been developing a strategy to replicate the project in other areas of Romania.
For more information, contact .
