Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo) 2022 Side Event

Launching of the South-South Matchmaker (Volume III), and the Matchmaking workshop on Public Service Innovation

Date: 14 September 2022
Time: 10:00- 12:00 PM (Bangkok Time)
Venue: UN Conference Center, Bangkok, Thailand/ Zoom
Mode: Hybrid
Meeting registration:https://undp.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEtdOisrTotG9LvZWxpkjItj_4IbPU0tNqP
Passcode: TBC
Co-organized by: Government of People’s Republic of Bangladesh, The UN Office for South-South Cooperation and South-South Network for Public Service Innovation (SSN4PSI). 

Background:

With the intervention of technology, the world is changing rapidly. Governments have to
continuously innovate to figure out how to serve citizens more effectively and efficiently to build a
smart and resilient future. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of health systems,
and people, threatened economic progress with far-reaching consequences and extended the
digital divide. In this changed reality of COVID-19, public services have to be reviewed methodically
to achieve people’s needs and make progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

More than two years into the pandemic, the development parameters of the world have
already changed. The impact of the pandemic showed how vulnerable countries, especially
developing countries, can unexpectedly face unprecedented realities. Against this backdrop, the
significance of solidarity as expressed in the core approach of South-South Cooperation is essential.
The necessity of partnerships among Southern countries has become increasingly vital as we move
forward to the post-pandemic reality and recovery and focus on achieving the SDGs by 2030.

To harness innovations, particularly in public service delivery to help governments and
the society make progress in the achievement of SDGs and other development agenda, the SouthSouth Network for Public Service Innovation (SSN4PSI) was launched at the Global South-South Development Expo on 27 November 2017 in Antalya, Turkey. The SSN4PSI is a collaborative
platform where governments, private sector organizations, experts, and academics exchange
knowledge, experiences, and expertise on public service innovation. One of the most important
methods employed by SSN4PSI is “Matchmaking”. Matchmaking ensures that countries that have
successfully tackled public service challenges in the past can effectively share solutions with
countries that need them the most.

Since its launch, the Network has organised around 15 workshops from which potential
adaptation opportunities have been generated. As a result, many of the matchmaking opportunities
generated from the workshops in public service delivery and healthcare have made the progress to
adaptive implementation. For instance, the Bangladesh “National Intelligence for Skills, Education,
Employment and Entrepreneurship (NISE)” platform was adapted in Somalia under the name
“Shaqo Abuur”. Jordan has adapted NISE as “Digi Maharath”.

Another example is Yemen’s first e-commerce platform “Yemeni Dukkan” adapted from
Bangladesh’s e-commerce platform “ekShop” and Turkey’s Dukkan, an adaptation of the ekShop.

Fiji adapted Bangladesh’s “Start to Finish Service Delivery tracker” while Peru is in the process of
starting a similar adaptation of the SDG Tracker.

Bangladesh took 4IR related knowledge support from Singapore and Social Safety Net was
replicated in Bangladesh from Togo.

As of August 2022, the SSN4PSI has 44 Members consisting of 30 countries in the global south and
14 global organisations. This year, the SSN4PSI will also launch the 3rd volume of the South-South
Matchmaker (best practices 2021-22) which contains 15 case studies covering governance,
healthcare, education, e-commerce with emphasis on COVID 19 response and recovery.

Objective of Side Event

The main objective of the side event at the GSSD Expo 2022 is to identify more novel innovations
for scaling-up public service innovation with a special focus on sustainable COVID-19 recovery,
more specifically.
● Facilitate match-making among participating countries and other relevant stakeholders;
● Facilitate an inclusive understanding of the kind of service delivery innovations that
create sustainable impact and process of creating that impact;
● Exhibit proven pathways from innovation prototyping to up-scaling;
● Explore more broadly the role of public service innovations in the realization of the
Sustainable Development Goals in the COVID-19 reality
● Bring the South-South Matchmaker Volume III (best practices 2021-2022) to broader
range of global audience and disseminate knowledge.

Format and Design of Side event

The side event will consist of two main components as follows:

I. Launching of The South-South Matchmaker (Volume III)
A “South-South in Action” publication featuring the best practices/development solutions in
Bangladesh was published in 2017. The success of this publication later worked as inspiration for
the compilation of more such initiatives.
Since the launch of the South-South Network for Public Service Innovation (SSN4PSI) in 2017
by the Government of Bangladesh and the UN Office for South-South Cooperation, the exchange
of best practices has been accelerated. Bangladesh’s a2i has provided secretarial support to the
Network along with the UNOSSC Regional Office for Asia-Pacific. The South-South Matchmaker
has evolved as a flagship publication of the Network. The Matchmaker features ongoing and high potential public service innovations around the world. The Network’s first publication containing
22 case studies (the Matchmaker) was published to include the matched cases during 2017-2018
workshops. The first volume at launched at the 2018 Global South-South Development Expo in
New York. The second volume (Volume II) of the globally circulated publication was published in
2020 and included 24 case studies covering the matched solutions for the years 2019-2020. The
South-South Matchmaker Volume III features a number of citizen-centric digital solutions that
contributed to a response to COVID-19 and other development challenges.

II. Matchmaking Session
The matchmaking workshops are usually conducted on specific themes. During the 2022
expo, selected partners will be encouraged to bring up any solutions related to the theme of the
Expo and digitalization. To facilitate discussions, a list of guiding questions will be provided
during the panel discussions. The matchmaking session will be conducted in a roundtable format
with facilitators. Participants will present their development solutions. After the presentations
and discussions, participants will indicate the solutions they wish to adapt.