The United Nations has sent an invitation to its member countries, including Fiji, for nominations of the most prestigious international recognition of excellence in the Public Service which is the UN Public Service Awards (UNPSA) for 2014.
Public Service permanent secretary, Parmesh Chand said the purpose of the UNPSA is to reward creative achievements and contributions of the Public Service institutions towards a more effective and responsive public administration in countries worldwide.
“It promotes the role, professionalism and visibility of the Public Service. The programme aims to discover new innovations in Governance, motivate public servants to further promote innovation, raise the image of public practices for possible replication between and within countries,” he said.
Mr Chand said that the award aims to discover innovation in Governance, reward excellence in the public sector, motivate public servants to further promote innovation, enhance professionalism in the public service, raise image of the public service, enhance trust in Government and collect and disseminate successful practices for possible replication.
The 2014 UNPSA will be given in the following four 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.
Nominees from public organizations or agencies at the national state and local levels should only select one category. Eligible nominators will include Government departments and agencies, universities, non-governmental organization, professional associations or an Organization that has benefitted from the initiatives.
There will be three rounds of Evaluation and requirements are two letters of reference, a minimum of two and a maximum of five supporting documents for example, Evaluation and Audit reports, results of clients and citizen survey books, DVD, Video tapes, newspaper articles etc.
The UNPSA considers five regions (Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Western Asia) and five categories, the maximum number of prizes is 25 for first place and 25 for second place.
Awards are handed out every year however, for Fiji there is no record as yet of an organization participating or having to receive this award.
Organizations, who wish to nominate a Public Sector, will have to fill the nomination form which can be obtained from the UNPAN website http://unpan.org/unpsa or contact Mr Collin Yabaki on email collin.yabaki@psc.gov.fj or Mrs Selai Korovusere on email selaik@psc.gov.fj. Forms are to be submitted to PSC by 11 December, 2013.
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