Matchmaking Workshop on “Public Service Delivery in the Era of SDGs”

• Nov 8th, 2021
• southnetwork
• 0

On 29 October 2021, The South-South Network for Public Service Innovation (SSN4PSI) co-organized a matchmaking workshop in collaboration with Astana Civile Service Hun (ASCH) and the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) on the sidelines of the Astana Civil Service Hub annual conference 2021. The workshop was conducted in the hybrid mode under the theme “Public Service Delivery in the Era of SDGs.” Around 88 participated virtually, and 40 attended physically from the Conference Venue in Nur-Sultan, the capital city of Kazakhstan.

In the opening session, Mr. Maxut Uteshev, Advisor to Chairman and Head of the Secretariat, Astana Civil Service Hub, Republic of Kazakhstan, gave an opening remark.  He highlighted that “…Certainly, today’s event is an important contribution to the development of partnerships at different level of modalities for effective governance during this uncertain time….it combines an effort and partnerships initiatives to share expertise, lesson learn, know-how and best practices in public service delivery and innovative digitalisation”

Followed by a video message from Ms. Xiaojun Grace Wang, Deputy Director for Programme and Operations, UNOSSC. “…The Global South endeavors to leave no one behind. Yet, we still can see that many countries are still struggling in terms of innovation policies and institutions which are often not aligned with the real needs of the users.  Therefore, in the process of learning, sharing, match-making, and applying, we need to ensure that the technological innovations are sustainable, inclusive, and adaptable to local conditions and contexts…”, “…Dripping water hollows out a rock, not through force but through persistence…”, she concluded.

At the workshop, there were nine presentations from eight countries, including Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, Georgia, India, Nepal, Nigeria, and Fiji, where were presented solutions to be presented cover important aspects of public service delivery, including governance, accelerating digitalisation, education and skills development, and health.

The deliberations in the workshop generated 57 possibilities for partnerships under the South-South Network for Public Service Innovation. These were generated by the following 9 countries.

Table1: Expression of interest (Matchmaking workshop)

In follow up to the possibilities for partnerships, the Network secretariat will follow up and facilitate on the partnerships that were generated and to move to the next step of learning and sharing ideas such as facilitating field visits and adaptation.

In the final session, Mr. Benjamin Kumpf, Head of OECD Innovation for Development Facility, OECD. He reflected the idea that “All the different innovations presented today focus on the important indicator of impact value growth and learning, for an example, the innovation from Nigeria, with clear monitoring of how financing is made available due to the noble solution and importantly how any new jobs were created in the sect of a particularly vulnerable population…. how we can deliver services of value for citizens…. South-South and triangular Cooperation is not about scaling solutions but, it is also scaling processes that enable governments to adapting and replicating to be ad-drive user center….”

Lastly, Mr. Denis Nkala, UNOSSC Regional Coordinator for Asia and the Pacific, gave the final message. “…South-South and triangular cooperation are, should, and will play an important role in achieving the SDGs …. sharing of knowledge and development solutions, cutting the learning curve, and enabling an achievement of result faster because it has done before. We are not going to invent the will but adjust and adapt it”. He reiterated.