United Nations Radio

The United Nations Public Service Awards Programme is the most prestigious international recognition of excellence in public service.

It aims to reward excellence and promote professionalism in the public sector worldwide. Gerry Adams has more:

Narrator: In late June, the seventh UN Public Service Day Awards Ceremony took place at United Nations headquarters, honouring public service organizations from around the world.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who opened the ceremony, said the winners this year had achieved extraordinary things in challenging times:

BKM 23 June: Governments and citizens are being buffeted by a cascade of crises. For too many, the daily devastations of persistent poverty and inequality are being made worse by energy and food insecurity. The global financial and economic crisis and the onset of climate change are further burdens. The challenge for public servants is to seize opportunity wherever it is presented. These awards recognize your inspirational examples in delivering results.

Narrator: The winners were judged in four categories - improving transparency and accountability; strengthening service delivery; enhancing participation in policy-making; and successful knowledge management. A winner in Category 1, "Improving transparency and accountability," was the city of Pitea,  Sweden, which won for promoting dialogue between government officials and citizens. Vice Mayor Helena Stenberg explains:

Stenberg: We invite our citizens to participate in the budget work and we use different types of methods to do that. When the citizens participate, they get understanding for our budget work that we have to make prioritizations and how we make them and with a dialogue, we get the citizens' point of view.

Narrator: In Category 2, for improving the delivery of services, the One Stop Shop for Companies in the Ministry of Public Administration of Slovenia was a winner. The Ministry of Public Administration deals with such diverse issues as housing, investments, business, taxes and the courts. But when anyone attempted to register any type of information, there was a problem, says Irma Krebs, Slovenia's Minister of Public Administration:

Krebs: Well, the procedure of registration lasted 60 days. It was very expensive 250-600 Euros. Now it's free of charge and of course because of one-stop-shop concept, companies now only have to visit one contact point ... without visiting several institutions.

Narrator: In India, the Government of Gujarat has improved access to water in rural areas by engaging citizens in water management through the institutionalization of community-managed drinking water. More than 35 million people will benefit, says Secretary 0f Water Supply, V.S. Gadhavi, from a successful programme created by the Water and Sanitation Management Organization, WASMO. WASMO has received the UN Public Service Award in Category 3, enhancing participation in policy-making:

VS: This is very important.  It has a very, very visible impact on health and education. Health because of the so many water-borne diseases, though they have not been completely eliminated but they are substantially reduced. And the second is the education of the girls because girls used to spend a lot of time in bringing the water, in managing the water, and because of the water availability at a place convenient to them, they have been able to divert their attention, their strength to their education. So there is a visible impact on health and education.

Narrator: The sole winner of Category 4, successful knowledge management, is the National School of Public Administration in Poland. The President of the General Assembly, Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, said "Sound public administration and effective governance are much like air. When it is readily available, fresh and pure, we often take it for granted. Only when it becomes polluted and we can no longer breathe comfortably, we realize how indispensable it is in our lives.

Reporting for UN Radio, this is Gerry Adams.

(duration: 4'32")