A Concrete Need: Justifying Spending to Technical and Financial Partners
With the support of organizations such as the Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, funding is provided to the Ministry of Public Health to support both routine programmatic activities and vaccination campaigns. These funds, decentralized down to the level of health districts, are essential for operational activities such as trainings, transportation, per diems, fuel supply, and other logistical expenses. However, monitoring the use of these resources and producing supporting documents at the local level remain major challenges, impacting the continuity of disbursements and the processing of No Objection Requests (NORs) related to financial aspects.
In Niger, this issue is being addressed thanks to IASO, the digital platform developed by Bluesquare, which facilitates the collection, transmission, and organization of supporting documents directly from the field. By digitizing this process, IASO significantly improves financial transparency, accelerates information flow, and strengthens trust among stakeholders.
Current System Challenges
Before IASO was adopted, district medical officers had to manually send the supporting documents required to validate expenditures incurred during campaigns. Several major issues hindered this process:
- Significant delays in transmitting documents
- Lost or missing supporting documents
- Unjustified or poorly justified expenses
- Misunderstandings between district and central levels
- Time-consuming and informal exchanges via WhatsApp
- Heavy administrative burden
- Lack of visibility for donors
These challenges often made it difficult to justify budgets and reduced the traceability of actions, highlighting the importance of reinforcing transparency mechanisms to ensure optimal campaign effectiveness.
A Concrete Solution: IASO as a Digital Justification Tool
IASO was deployed in Niger to directly address these challenges. Thanks to its user-friendly interface, field teams can now:
- Upload supporting documents directly from the field (photos of receipts, invoices, attendance sheets, etc.)
- Link each document to a specific activity
- Monitor in real time the status of document submission
- Structure information in a standardized and accessible way
Activities requiring supporting documentation may include: health worker per diems, fuel purchases for campaign vehicles, printing of communication materials, local training sessions, vehicle or equipment rentals, and field supervisor allowances. By digitizing these documents, IASO enables health authorities and auditing stakeholders to quickly verify expenses, identify anomalies, and accelerate budget approvals, all while significantly reducing administrative burden.
For the best experience, view the video in full screen.
Video: Demonstration of document submission from the user’s side
Thanks to IASO, stakeholders — particularly financial teams — no longer need to travel hundreds of kilometers to review supporting documents. Expense justification now happens in real time, with an integrated validation mechanism. Each document is either approved or rejected, with an automatic notification explaining the reason for rejection. Additionally, a locking system prevents any changes to documents once they are validated, thus ensuring the integrity of the submitted information.
IASO transforms a traditionally opaque and manual process into a smooth, traceable, and transparent procedure. In Niger, this innovation marks a turning point toward greater local accountability, ultimately enhancing the effectiveness of public health campaigns. The use of IASO in Niger has already reduced document loss, standardized reporting formats, and strengthened confidence in decentralized financing processes.
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