In many parts of the Bangsamoro region, civic services are hard to access— due to distance, limited digital infrastructure, and fragmented processes. Over time, these challenges have eroded citizens’ trust in local governance. To strengthen this relationship, BARMM needed a new approach—a Braver Governance by Design. A systems approach that puts people’s welfare at the center of service delivery.
How might service delivery be reimagined so that people experience government not as distant and difficult, but as responsive, accessible, and human-centered?
KindMind, in collaboration with UNDP Philippines and the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government (MILG), partnered with local governments in Lanao del Sur to pilot a redesigned civic service process that places collective flourishing at the center.
What does this look like in practice?
1. Services as Bridges, not Barriers. In BARMM, where governance has historically been fragile and trust uneven, civic service design means turning services into bridges of peace and belonging. It’s not just about delivery, but about making government felt, visible, and reliable in people’s everyday lives.
2. Co-Designing with Communities. KindMind frames services not as top-down programs but as shared architectures of care:
3. Embedding a Systemic Practice. Civic service design in BARMM
4. Grounding in BARMM Realities.
To lay the right foundation from the very beginning, KindMind applied its Braver Governance by Design systemic approach. In close collaboration with UNDP and MILG, this led to a reframing and redesign of core service systems—covering identity, prosperity, eligibility, and mobility—ensuring that governance is not only efficient, but also equitable, people-centered, and future-ready.
Overarching Framework
The Digital Service Design Lab (DSDL) follows the KindMind Service Design framework, which treats civic service delivery like a staged event. Each service is broken down into steps, actions, channels, evidence, time/cost/visits, onstage (visible interactions), backstage (support processes), tools/systems, and policies—allowing services to be mapped, simplified, and redesigned for better user experience. DSDL in 2020 Season 1 focused on building capacity by training government personnel in human-centered service design. Outputs included empathy training, research safari, discovery workshops, creation of simplified blueprints for four pilot services, localization of toolkits, and providing oversight for newly trained service designers. DSDL 1.0 focused on the simplification to enhance the efficiency of the following key civic services - Birth Certificate, Business Permit, Barangay Eligibility, and Travel Authority. DSDL in 2021-2022 Building on Season 1, Seasons 2 and 3 expanded the Training of Trainers (ToT) to additional LGUs and ministries while deepening the skills of earlier cohorts. Both cycles included:
Each season also ended with a Team Retrospective to evaluate facilitation performance and identify program improvements.
Through the project, enhanced systemic and cultural shifts in BARMM governance emerged:
In total, 12 representatives from the LGUs, 11 ministries, select members of parliament, and civil society groups (including the Bangsamoro Women’s Commission and Moropreneurs)were trained to become civic service design champions.
Through a series of service design workshops, community insights were translated into prototypes and continuously evaluated through Team Retrospectives. Localized toolkits and step-by-step manuals were created, equipping frontline staff with practical resources rooted in the lived experiences of the communities they serve. Building on these efforts, co-creation sessions informed the development of the “BARMM at Your Service” digital portal, providing a centralized platform that makes essential government services more accessible, transparent, and responsive to the diverse needs of the region.
By reframing service delivery through lived experience and designing governance around collective well-being, the region is moving toward systems where public services are not only available, but truly accessible. Through systems thinking, co-creation, and civic service design, KindMind demonstrates how people-centered innovation can bridge public and private sectors—advancing resilience, equity, and sustainable development.
The Digital Service Design Lab aims to transform how we deliver services and information to the public with the help of digital channels. The lab will introduce digital service design to public servants and enable continuous practice in using these methods to transform the provision of services - digitally and beyond.