Deadline: October 16, 2023
Applications are open for the United Nations Public Service Awards (UNPSA) 2024. The United Nations Public Service Awards is a prestigious international recognition of excellence in public service. It rewards the creative achievements and contributions of public service institutions that lead to a more effective and responsive public administration in countries worldwide. Through an annual competition, the UN Public Service Awards promotes the role, professionalism and visibility of public service.
The UN Public Service Day intends to celebrate the value and virtue of public service to the community; highlight the contribution of public service in the development process; recognize the work of public servants, and encourage young people to pursue careers in the public sector. Since the first Awards Ceremony in 2003, the United Nations has received an increasing number of submissions from all around the world.
Categories
- Category on Innovation in Public Institutions: Delivering inclusive and equitable services requires public sector institutions to be creative, flexible, and resilient. Institutions need to create enabling environment for innovation, having appropriate policies and resources in place and take measured risks. They will have to be creative in addressing the complex and interrelated challenges of the SDGs to make sure no one is left behind.
- Category on Gender-Responsive Public Services: Gender-responsive public services play a critical role in reducing inequality and advancing the rights of women and girls. While public services have improved to provide more targeted services to different demographics, innovation is not inherently inclusive and more can be done to empower women and girls as they continue to be under-represented and underserved. It is important to garner the active participation of women and girls in all stages of planning, budgeting, implementation, monitoring and evaluation so they are not only the recipients of services but also co-creators and contributors to solutions.
- Special Category on Tackling Climate Change: Urgent action is needed to combat climate change and its impacts. Extreme weather patterns are more frequent and intense droughts, storms and heat waves will make more places on Earth uninhabitable. It is threatening biodiversity. Many Small Island Developing States (SIDS) already face an existential crisis with rising sea levels. Other impacts of climate change – from having clean water and air, stable food supply, deforestation, desertification, and displacement – will affect us all but the most vulnerable segment of the population will be disproportionately hurt. It is a global challenge that requires concerted efforts to mitigate the negative effects and make society more resilient.
Eligibility
- Open to all public sector institutions at the national, sub-national and local levels from all UN member states.
- In the case of partnerships, the application must include the public sector institution. There is no personal nomination or recognition.
- The initiative must be relevant to one of the categories.
- The initiative must have been implemented for a minimum of two years, except for the special category which will be specified, if different.
- To avoid conflict of interest, the initiative must not be implemented by the United Nations System.
Application
Download and complete the form in any of the following languages:
Applications MUST be completed before October 16, 2023.
For more information, visit UNPSA.
