RIYADH — The National Center for Performance Measurement "Adaa” has launched an application called Watani to measure beneficiaries’ satisfaction on services provided by public entities.

The application enables citizens, residents and visitors to the Kingdom to evaluate public services offered across the Kingdom. Watani covers more than 28,000 service centers and 80,000 services are identified within the application in 1,150 cities, villages and towns throughout the Kingdom.

The application aims to leverage communications channels between public entities and citizens using smart tools. Now beneficiaries have access to an interactive tool at their fingertip to evaluate public services at any time and any place. On the other hand, the application will enable public entities to understand beneficiaries' needs and enhance the quality of services.

Adaa Director General Husameddin Al-Madani said the launch of Watani application was inspired by one of the Saudi Vision 2030 pillars: “Ambitious nation with an effective government and responsible enabled citizens”.

Al-Madani pointed out that one of Adaa’s objectives is to support the improvement and development of public services using state-of-the-art technologies that will make the voice of beneficiaries more visible. Hence Watani has been developed by Adaa’s young and ambitious team and was benchmarked against top international customer centric applications.

Al-Madani added that the application includes various service categories, such as labor market, healthcare, transportation, education, business and commerce, justice, sports and recreation, internal affairs, and public utilities. More than 34 public entities fall under these categories.

Watani’s evaluation criteria are based on center readiness, satisfaction with the service provided, and speed of service delivery and procedures.

One of Watani‘s features is offering users access to view the highest rated centers and other beneficiary reviews filtered by service centers and the services provided. It also allows receiving notifications on satisfaction surveys, as well as offering space to share ideas and suggestions for further development.

On the value that Watani will bring to the overall performance measurement processes of Adaa, Al-Madani indicated that Adaa's core job is to collect data using several measurement tools such as surveys, mystery shopping, focus groups and the Watani application. Then all received data go through verification and thorough analysis to issue satisfaction reports on a quarterly basis. These reports are submitted to the Council of Ministers and shared with the heads of public entities. Review meetings for the findings of the reports are then held with the entities in order to support public services optimization and development.

Al-Madani said the application could be downloaded from iTunes Store and Google Play. Beneficiaries can also submit their evaluations via watani.gov.sa. Further information can be obtained from the social networking platforms of the application @wataniAPP.

Adaa is an independent government body, founded in October 2015 following a decision by the Council of Ministers based on the recommendation of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs. — SG