Editorial: Innovation in public administration to leave no one behind

Amid continuing and rising global concerns regarding climate change, environmental damage and stubbornly intractable wicked social issues, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015. Bound to the principle of ‘leaving no one behind’, the Agenda stresses an all-inclusive approach to achieving sustainable development for all humanity.

The 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) intended to ‘transform our world’ are:

1. No poverty

2. Zero hunger

3. Good health and well-being

4. Quality education

5. Gender equality

6. Clean water and sanitation

7. Affordable and clean energy

8. Decent work and economic growth

9. Industry, innovation and infrastructure

10. Reduced inequalities

11. Sustainable cities and communities

12. Responsible production and consumption

13. Climate action

14. Life below water

15. Life on land

16. Peace, justice and strong institutions

17. Partnerships to achieve the goals (UN, 2019a).

The 17 core goals are supported by 169 targets. Each target has between one and three indicators used to measure progress toward reaching that targets. In total, there are 232 approved indicators that will gauge observance of each of the 17 goals (UN, 2019a). It is an ambitious undertaking for the UN and its constituent members, all of whom have committed themselves to achieving these goals by 2030.

There are some obvious overlaps and, in some cases, contradictions. For example, the achievement of zero hunger, clean water and sanitation, economic growth and industry can often appear to be in conflict with SDGs 13, 14 and 15. However this doesn't have to be the case and the countries that have done the most in recent years to raise their citizens out of crushing poverty, China and India, are also intensely tackling the climate and environmental problems resulting from increased industrialization and urbanization. One thing that is clear to the practitioners and academics involved in public administration and the delivery of public services is that none of the other 15 SDGs can be achieved without the co-ordination and delivery of SDGs 16 and 17. These are at the core of public administration and the delivery of good governance; without sufficient numbers of appropriately-trained, competent and essentially incorrupt public administrators, none of the other SDGs are widely achievable. But we need to recognize that important political issues and definitions of good governance are socially constructed and culturally bound; to seek to impose one version on all others is condemned to failure.

Celebrating public service employees

The UN acknowledges the primary importance of public administration and its Governance and Public Administration Branch oversees annual innovation awards in public administration. In particular, innovations that support the SDGs and improving the lives of citizens are especially recognized; or, rather, the often-unacknowledged champions of governance, the public service employees, are celebrated. The 2019 UN Public Service Awards were presented at a ceremony in June in Baku, Azerbaijan. The 11 winners were from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Kenya, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, and Thailand and represented a range and depth of public provision devoted to improving the delivery of services in an innovative and sustainable way, improving the lives of thousands and in some cases millions of citizens.

The awards were divided into five categories.

Category 1: Delivering inclusive and equitable services to leave no one behind

A Kenyan organization, the Water Sector Trust Fund (WSTF), is ‘upscaling basic sanitation for the urban poor’. In low-income urban areas of Kenya, inadequate and unsustainable access to sanitation and water has been affecting the hygiene and living conditions of residents, particularly women, children and other vulnerable populations of the community. The WSTF has ‘ensured safe and sustainable emptying, transport and treatment of toilet sludge through the construction of the decentralized treatment facilities (DTFs)’ (UN, 2019; 2019 UNPSA Fact Sheet); by ‘December 2018, the initiative had provided 200,000 residents with safe access to water and sanitation’.

In Brazil, the Prefeitura do Jaboatão dos Guararapes has instituted an initiative called ‘Enhancing a Co-operative Network for Productive and Social Inclusion’. This scheme employs some of the former informal waste and street cleaners:

The programme offers training as well as technical and infrastructure support, aiming also at environmental benefits of waste collection. It prioritizes women and other groups in vulnerable situations, such as HIV-positive, former offenders, and former drug addicts, to encourage entrepreneurship and self-management of co-operatives (UN, 2019; 2019 UNPSA Fact Sheet).

From Australia, there was the state of Victoria's Rabbit Action Network, designed to address the environmental mayhem caused by the introduction of an alien species.

In the State of Victoria, the European Rabbit created unstable land use by burrowing and reproducing at high rates. The Victorian Rabbit Action Network (VRAN) forges communication and provides the opportunity for information exchange between the local community and local government on how to address the invasive rabbit species. VRAN records lessons learned to help adapt response mechanisms and future interventions to control the invasive species problem. It also includes an engagement with policy-makers to help local government pass better policies. In four years, it has covered 2.4 million hectares of land that was affected. Surveyed responses and evaluations of the initiative have indicated a fundamental shift in invasive species management towards the community-led approach (UN, 2019; 2019 UNPSA Fact Sheet).

Category 2: Ensuring integrated approaches in public sector institutions

In Indonesia, the Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana (the National Board for Disaster Management) has established a platform providing free, real-time disaster information, and making it possible to safely and easily share it. This leverages capacity for all residents to equally participate in decision-making.

In Argentina, the Laboratorio de Hemoderivados de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba has established the Social, Synergistic and Sustainable Business Model, which reflects the fact that many chronically ill patients in Argentina:

… require expensive medications to survive, but do not have the economic resources or health coverage to pay for them. As such, there was a gap in access to expensive medicines for the poor and/or vulnerable, and particularly for drugs manufactured using blood products like plasma. The creation of the Blood Products Laboratory aims to transform pathogenic residue (plasma) into safe, effective and affordable medicines for the most poor and vulnerable while created a supply network that can access the affordable drugs for patients (UN, 2018; UN, 2019; 2019 UNPSA Fact Sheet; UN, 2019b; UN, 2019c).

The Portuguese initiative in this category was from the National Support Centres for the Integration of Migrants (CNAIM):

Migrants in Portugal had to visit multiple offices to receive information about their settlement process. This led to long wait times, delayed responses and deferred procurement of required documents which the impacted legal, social and employment circumstances of the migrants. The initiative enables concentration and co-operation of various public institutions by facilitating a unified working process. The services inform, guide and advice migrants by providing consistent information and minimizing inaccuracy and delays. As a result, migrants were able to address issues regarding their settlement in a single visit to the offices. Between March 2004 and September 2018, CNAIM provided 4,599,749 services, focusing their effort on quality and efficiency (UN, 2019; 2019 UNPSA Fact Sheet).

Category 3: Developing effective and responsible public institutions

Winners in this group included the Self-reliant Solar Energy Community from Thailand. This initiative has provided 100% of the households in their sub-district with low-cost solar energy:

… taking into consideration the suitability of areas where electricity expansion was impossible. It also established a self-reliant alternative energy learning centre for the community to train individuals to become technicians and promote revolving capital for purchasing solar energy equipment. They facilitated three learning centres and ensured there were five community technicians per 100 people in the sub-district. The results include knowledge of solar energy, environmental sustainability and CO₂ reduction (UN, 2019; 2019 UNPSA Fact Sheet).

Category 4: Promoting digital transformation in public sector institutions

In this category, there was emphasis on the digitization of health care records to facilitate rapid diagnosis and care for patients.

Category 5: Promoting gender-sensitive public services to achieve the SDGs

The winners here included the Seoul Metropolitan Government in Korea which has been delivering services to low-income women who did not readily have access to affordable sanitary pads and addressing the problem of public bathrooms generally not having vending machines for sanitary pads for purchase. In response, the initiative first focused (in 2016) on providing sanitary pads to low-income teens. In 2017, it reached approximately 992 facilities used by disadvantaged individuals. In addition:

… there is a plan to further install 200 public sanitary pad dispensers in 2019 with expansion in the future. Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) also operates 250 “Girl Care” pharmacies and has designed an informational website and notebook on menstruation to better educate the public (UN, 2019; 2019 UNPSA Fact Sheet).

In Chile, the Promotion of Women-Led Companies, through ChileCompra, addressed the gender gap in women's participation in the public marketplace.

The creation of the Sello Empresa Mujer (Woman Company Seal), which identifies products/companies led by women or where women are shareholders with 50% or more stake in the company, encourages more women to participate in the opportunities offered by the public marketplace. Furthermore, women have been given training and tools to improve the management of their businesses. Public procurement was also instructed to make purchases with affirmative measure to support hiring of women. The initiative has been instrumental in promoting micro and small enterprises owned by women in the marketplace and public procurement processes (UN, 2019; 2019 UNPSA Fact Sheet).

While in Austria, Competence Checks for Refugee Women, ABZ*Kompetenzcheck, by the Public Employment Service Austria, AMS in partnership with ABZ*Austria, assists in integrating refugee women:

… who were unable to provide their competences and qualifications and secure decent employment. The initiative offers certification of skills of refugee women or provide training to update the skills to possible career opportunities in the Austrian labour market. The training and counselling are carried out exclusively by mother-tongue experts in Farsi and Arabic. Women are accompanied for seven weeks and have the opportunity to do internships. Through the programme, refugee women were able to be prove their knowledge and skills, bolster their language skills, expand their social network and become financially independent (UN, 2019; 2019 UNPSA Fact Sheet).

Think globally and act locally

In recognizing the public servants who are integral to designing and delivering these innovative services, designed to benefit the lives of ordinary citizens and those who are often at the margin of their communities, the awards also recognize the ways in which the 17 SDGs can be realized in communities around the world. The key to effective administration and the attainment of the goals is to think globally and act locally, using advanced technology and management techniques that involve the community in their design and delivery. At the centre of all of this are competent, honest, dedicated officials.