By Li Junhua, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs
Only a few days ago, I had the privilege of celebrating and honoring 12 outstanding public service initiatives at the ceremony for the United Nations Public Service Awards 2026, held in Tbilisi, Georgia. The initiatives recognized at this event were selected out of more than 700 submissions received from 62 countries. I was inspired by this year’s awardees and their new solutions for providing public services at the national or sub-national level, addressing multiple challenges and enhancing the capabilities of public administrations while advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We also saw how some of the winning initiatives leveraged information and communication technologies, artificial intelligence, and digital government.
Effective public institutions are paramount in our efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and all the SDGs. Institutions that deliver public services play a critical role in advancing many of the SDG targets, from education to health to the environment, and in making the imperative to leave no one behind a reality for all, including women, persons with disabilities, and other marginalized or underserved groups.
Of course, recognizing the importance of public service in advancing sustainable development pre-dates the 2030 Agenda. In 2003, the UN General Assembly designated 23 June as UN Public Service Day. The same year, the organization created the United Nations Public Service Awards (UNPSA). Since then, the Awards have celebrated excellence in public service at the local, regional and national levels in all countries and recognized more than 300 initiatives worldwide, showcasing the vital role of public service innovation in promoting sustainable development.
I believe that the Awards contribute to advancing the SDGs in several ways.
Direct benefits from winning initiatives
First, receiving the Award is a signal of excellence that can directly support the winning institutions. In 2023, my department reconnected with past UNPSA winners to learn how winning the Award affected their initiatives. Projects from 10 countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, India, Kenya, Panama, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, and Ukraine) told us how the Awards brought them visibility and encouraged further innovation and growth.
The city of Jaboatão dos Guararapes in Brazil won the Awards twice - one in 2019 for a local waste collection program, and the other in 2020 for a special education initiative. The two projects gained national attention and several municipalities sought to replicate them.
Other initiatives were scaled up after winning the Awards.
A local city bus service in India (MoBus) won an Award in 2022 and became a model of urban development in the region. Another programme secured additional government investment, expanding its scope and impact. Seoul's Public Sanitary Pads Support Policy, a winner in 2019 for gender-responsive public services, saw activity spike after the Awards, with the number of participating organizations growing from 11 to 300. More than 50 regional governments in the Republic of Korea have since initiated support projects for women's menstrual health.
Several recipients have mentioned that winning the Award had a direct and positive impact on staff morale and motivation. A project team reported that the Award lent credibility to their ideas and fostered an environment in which calculated risks are embraced, and novel solutions are celebrated. Thus, the Awards crucially promote innovation within individual organizations.
Accelerated progress towards the SDGs
Ultimately, we see that recognizing outstanding public service initiatives fosters faster progress towards the SDGs.
Another example of this is a regional COVID-19 Vaccination Information System in Panama (Panavac19). The team behind the initiative, a winner of the Awards in 2022, reported that the Award had a positive impact on the vaccination registration process and on access to vaccines for adults and children. It also improved people’s access to their medical information.
In Kenya, two sanitation-related initiatives won the Awards in 2019 and 2021, which boosted overall funding and sanitation access in low-income areas.
ProzorroSale, a Ukrainian platform for managing public assets transparently and efficiently, won the Award in 2022. The platform has helped raise millions of euros in revenue for the Ukrainian government and municipalities. Additionally, the platform enhances transparency and helps reduce corruption in asset management.
A key resource for the exchange of experiences
The benefits of the Awards extend beyond the winners.
Together, the many thousands of initiatives submitted to the Awards over the years represent a unique source of information for those who want to study trends in public service delivery and changes in public administration.
This information is also a key resource for practitioners at all levels. I emphasize this point because sharing practical experiences and knowledge is a critical way to inspire more responsive public services, enhanced participation and inclusion, and increased transparency and accountability. All governments must deliver basic public services to everyone, harness the rapid pace of technological development, and rebuild public trust. They all face similar challenges in this respect. Looking at how other countries innovate to overcome these challenges should be a natural approach for policymakers and public servants.
Information about the Awards is publicly accessible on our website through the Public Service Innovation Hub. As part of this platform, a new database compiles more than 4,000 initiatives submitted to the Awards since 2007.
Users can browse and filter initiatives by year, theme, SDG, submitting institution, and other categories, and download selected cases in bulk, enabling quick access to examples, insights, and good practices from around the world.
The Hub also features individual profiles of the UNPSA-winning initiatives since 2015, as well as information on UN Public Service Day and Awards. I believe that this platform provides real public good, and I encourage practitioners to use it.
We need the creativity and enthusiasm of public servants more than ever
For public institutions, embracing innovation is more crucial than ever.
The UN Public Service Awards showcase how public institutions worldwide contribute to advancing the SDGs.
We must build on their success to help create a better future for all.
Learn more about Li Junhua, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs here.