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lthough the mobile application has yet to be officially launched, Swakita is already aiding local leaders in managing their respective neighborhoods and communicating with residents.

Swakita is a location-based social media app developed by startup company PT Inovasi Dunia Kreasi in cooperation with the city administration as an urban management tool aimed at bridging communications between local leaders '€” from the neighborhood-unit level to governor '€” and residents.

Through the application, developed by Inovasi'€™s Skydreem, residents can lodge complaints or submit reports regarding problems or any other relevant matter in their area, while local leaders can access and respond to them as well as make announcements.

The app, which took five months to develop, is set for launch later this month.

East Cengkareng subdistrict leader Agus Mulyadi is among local leaders who actively uses the app to help carry out his job as an '€œurban manager'€.

'€œI have used the app since last year. It is very useful because my work covers a 400-hectare area and it is impossible to physically monitor the entire area every day. Using the app, I can access complaints submitted by my residents,'€ Agus told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday, adding that he also used the app to make announcements.

Agus has encouraged neighborhood and community unit leaders in his area to install the app on their smartphones.

'€œThere are 17 community unit leaders and 225 neighborhood unit leaders in my subdistrict, some 35 percent of them have installed the app. Some others have yet to grow accustomed to technology,'€ he said.

App developer Sumarpung Halim said the app was designed to support the work of local leaders like Agus, and act as a tool to measure performance.

'€œThe app features a one-stop integrated service information desk, small and medium enterprises [SME] promotion, residents'€™ letters, inquiry, blog, announcement board and performance panel. Higher officials can check out how effective a local leader is in managing their area,'€ Sumarpung said in a press conference in South Jakarta on Monday.

He said the app also featured graphs that displayed the number of problems reported and addressed by the relevant authorities.

The developer has designed two versions of the app: one for city officials and one for residents.

The developer claimed the app had more features than the city administration'€™s Qlue and CROP.

Swakita has been downloaded by more than 1,000 users and has been given an 3.8 average rating by 42 Android users, whose most frequent complaint is that the app only opens if users install Sirklet, a messenger app also developed by Skydreem.

Swakita itself takes up about six megabytes of space while Sirklet takes up more than 12 MB.

The city administration has launched its own smartphone app called Qlue, for residents, and CROP (Cepat Respon Opini Publik), for local leaders. Also available only on the Android platform, Qlue has been downloaded by more than 10,000 users and has been given an average 4.2 rating by 404 users. Qlue, which takes up 13 MB of space, has been used by active users to post pictures about flooding, traffic, illegal dumps and people burning trash, among others.