GGIF’s project “Quality of service: a public control area” hosted press lunch in Almaty

A private foundation “FIPRO” (city of Ust-Kamenogorsk) hosted in Almaty on February, 24 press lunch devoted to beginning of the second phase of the project “Quality of service: a public control area” within the framework of “Good Governance Initiative Fund” program, realized by Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia (EFCA) under financial support of  the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Project mission is to improve quality of public services revealing “hidden” public services.

“Project (2nd phase) is about to start in three pilot regions: Almaty, Pavlodar and East Kazakhstan oblasts. We’ll try to figure out what “hidden” public services are and how they could be counted. We’ll conduct surveys among service providers and service recipients, we’ll host focus-groups, invite media”, - told Sergei Pizikov, Head of the project “Quality of service: a public control area”.

He added that choice of the regions was motivated by considerations “where it would be easy to move forward the project and meet its timeline”.

“Our aim is to develop a tool, method to reveal latent public services and by the end of this year to submit the document to the ministry of national economy of Kazakhstan”, - added S.Pizikov.

He stressed, however, that currently public service is provided in a way the service provider suggests as the most appropriate. Service provider may request the documents at one’s own discretion. Moreover there is no quality control for public services, as it is not recorded in the registry.

The methodology is designed to fill a gap appeared in the public services system development. Such an approach was approved by the State Body Efficiency Evaluation Center under the Ministry of National Economy.

The atmosphere of the press lunch was lively and constructive. Participants of the meeting actively expressed their ideas, comments and recommendations on the project’s content.

“Thank you for coming. We’ll stay in touch with all of you during the project. We’ll invite you to participate in our events. Issues, that arise within the frames of the project, are significant and worth to be highlighted in media”, - resumed Olga Sviridenko, Director of  Private Foundation “FIPRO”.