With prepayment plans, consumers are more prone to paying burdensome transaction fees and face an increased risk of electricity shut-off when prepaid credits have been exhausted (Howat and McLaughlin 2012).

In order to have their households connected to the water network, citizens in all four economies have to go through 3 procedures including requesting a feasibility study, requesting water connection service, and paying a connection fee. In Chile, citizens must go through an additional procedure that involves obtaining a final inspection before having the water turned on. A final inspection is not required procedure in Ghana, India, or Vietnam. However, a final construction inspection is important to verify whether there are leaks or damages in the piping work that could compromise the construction.<sup>29</sup> In Chile, it is possible to submit a joint request for a water and sanitation feasibility study, whereas in India these are two separate procedures despite both services being supplied by the same provider. In Ghana and Vietnam, water suppliers are not the same as sanitation suppliers. As a result, it is not possible to request a joint feasibility study for connection to both utilities.

## **3.6.3. Online procedures and digital components**

It is not possible to request a new electricity connection online in Chile or Ghana. The study did not capture data on this aspect for Vietnam or India. In both Chile and Ghana, citizens are required to have a meter installed in the connected household.

Paying the water bill online is possible in Chile, India, and Vietnam through the water utilities’ websites. In Ghana, payments are only accepted in person at the utility company’s regional or district offices, through dedicated kiosks, or through authorized banks, financial institutions, and private collectors.<sup>30</sup>

# **4. Conclusions and Lessons Learned**

Citizens all over the world deal with bureaucratic complexity in their interactions with governments, governmental agencies, and service providers. Two of the four economies surveyed by _Living Life_ still lag in implementation for the digital components of civil registration and identification systems, which may increase the bureaucratic complexity faced by citizens to register births and deaths or to obtain an ID.

In three of the four surveyed economies, citizens are required to have a specific, single-purpose document or voter ID card to cast a ballot. In none of the four economies is voting mandatory. Requiring citizens to go through a specific set of procedures that can be both costly and time consuming to access these specific documents can discourage citizens from engaging in the election processes.

The lack of electronic or online resources and the requirement of presenting documents, forms, and payments of fees in person can be substantial obstacles for citizens to exercise their rights and to access basic services. For example, while tax e-filing systems are available in three of the four surveyed economies, tax payers can only submit tax appeals electronically in one economy, while citizens in the remaining surveyed economies 29 http://www.agcs.allianz.com/assets/PDFs/white%20papers/AGCS%20Water%20Damage%20Loss%20Control%20Guide%20053112rev.pdf. 30 http://www.gwcl.com.gh/pay_points.html.

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