The United Nations is calling for nominations for the UN Public Service Awards 2014. This is an international contest designed to promote and support innovations in public service delivery worldwide. The award is open to public organizations of all kinds, including Governments and public-private partnerships that are involved in delivering services to citizens around the globe.

An annual United Nations event, the 2014 Public Service Awards, which will be held in Seoul, Republic of Korea will be bestowed on those public institutions that have distinguished themselves in the following categories: Improving the Delivery of Public Services; Fostering Participation in Policy-making Decisions through Innovative Mechanisms; Promoting Whole-of-Government Approaches in the Information Age and Promoting Gender-Responsive Delivery of Public Services.  The award highlights cutting edge innovations and recognizes that democracy and successful governance are built on a competent civil service.

“The United Nations has long recognized the importance of good governance and efficient public administration. Current global consultations on the post-2015 agenda have further underscored their centrality to all development objectives. United Nations Public Service Day encourages countries to celebrate the contribution of public servants to society’s progress,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his message for the 2013 United Nations Public Service Day.

The day was established by the Economic and Social Council in 2003 to promote better delivery of services by governments and to encourage excellence in the public service. As Mr. Wu Hongbo, Under-Secretary-General of UN DESA, emphasized during the 2013 United Nations Public Service Awards ceremony held in Manama, Bahrain, “With limited resources and mounting challenges facing Governments in the delivery of public services, today’s innovative winners inspire us to work harder to address public service challenges”.

The global event is organized by UN DESA’s Division of Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM) in partnership with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).

While contenders cannot nominate themselves, interested institutions deemed to have designed and implemented innovations in any one of the prize categories can have their name put forward by Governments or civil society organizations. Nominations must be made online here from 18 September 2013 until 18 December 2013.

For background information about the UN Public Service Awards and past winners. All winning cases of the United Nations Public Service Awards (UNPSA) are available as iPad and iPhone applications It can be downloaded for free and as an eBook.

The Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing will hold its second session on 2-6 December at UN Headquarters in New York.

At the Rio+20 Conference, UN Member States recognized the need for significant mobilization of resources and the effective use of financing, to support developing countries in their efforts to promote sustainable development. Subsequently, the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing was created to look into these and related matters.

Following its first session held at the end of August, time has now come for the Committee’s second session. And as this is a committee of experts, the session will be closed. However, in order to fulfill the mandate from Rio+20 to consult with a variety of stakeholders, an open interactive multi-stakeholder dialogue will take place on Thursday 5 December 2013.

The interactive dialogue will be divided into two parts. From 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. the Co-chairs will brief on the work of the Committee, followed by questions and answers from the floor. From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. a panel composed of four representatives from NGOs, business and industry sectors and other Major Groups engaged in the Rio+20 Conference and the Financing for Development process will give presentations, followed by an open discussion with the audience.

More information can be found on the Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform.

In collaboration with Sustainable Energy for All, UN-Energy and the Economic Commission for Africa and UN DESA’s Division for Sustainable Development, a Global Conference on Rural Energy Access will be organized on 4-6 December in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, focusing on a nexus approach to sustainable development and poverty eradication.

The main objective of the event is to strengthen capacities on policy, technical, and entrepreneurial approaches to rural energy access for eradicating poverty and promoting sustainable development in rural communities.

More specifically, the Conference will aim to promote dialogue among practitioners, experts, donors and policy-makers to facilitate closer cooperation on rural energy access. It will seek to assess potential integrated policy options to address rural energy and to identify synergies that can be realized from the links between energy and other development factors including health, education, economic growth, gender, water and food security.

A further objective of the Conference is to encourage a discussion on ways to apply models and practices to allow the scaling up of the use of clean cook stoves and stand-alone renewable energy systems. Participants will aim to identify best practices and lessons learned on sharing international and country-level experiences in rural energy-access development. Furthermore, the Conference is to assist participants in identifying relevant renewable energy products, systems and services for rural communities and support the Rio+20 follow-up process and the post-2015 development agenda.

The Conference will also host a technology exhibition, at which 30 organisations are planning to showcase their equipment, products and services related to rural energy access.

For more information: Global Conference on Rural Energy Access: A Nexus Approach to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication

The sixth session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals will take place on 9-13 December at UN Headquarters in New York.

The first two days will be dedicated to discussing means of implementation (science and technology, knowledge-sharing and capacity building) and global partnership for achieving sustainable development. Days three and four will be devoted to deliberating the needs of countries in special situations, African countries, Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries, and Small Island Developing States, as well as specific challenges facing the middle-income countries. The final day will focus on human rights, the right to development, and global governance.

The issues will be explored through an interactive dialogue which will include keynote speeches and panel discussions. Issues briefs produced by the UN System Technical Support team, as well as the draft programme and further information, can be found on the Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform (SDKP) (see link below).

Involvement of Major Groups and other Stakeholders in the Open Working Group process has been central from the beginning, and there are a number of ways for them to engage. Representatives from the Major Groups will attend the session as official observers, and the Co-chairs will meet with Major Groups and other Stakeholders from 9 am to 10am each of the five mornings of the session. Input can also be provided via the Thematic Clusters on the SDKP.

For more information:

Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform (SDKP)