Call for nominations to the UN Public Service Awards

The call for nominations for the 2013 United Nations Public Service Awards (UNPSA) is now open. This award is the most prestigious international recognition of excellence in public service institutions.

The UNPSA is awarded in five categories including one on promoting gender-responsive delivery of public services. This category was added within the UNPSA awards by UNDESA and UN Women in 2011 to recognize exemplary efforts of public sector institutions around the world towards delivering services for women. This is the only award at a global level that has been set up to recognize contributions of the public sector in improving the gender responsiveness of service delivery.

Equitable public service provision to women and men continues to be a great challenge, especially at a time when there is severe pressure on governments to reduce public expenditure, due to the global economic downturn. It is therefore extremely important to recognize and encourage public sector actors who are working hard to make sure that services reach men and women equally in these difficult times.

Public sector initiatives that can be nominated in this category could range from innovative service-delivery mechanisms such as mobile health clinics or e-services that address mobility, security or time-burden challenges faced by women, to participatory planning and monitoring that have a focus on service delivery for women (e.g. community score cards that focus on maternal health services), to the implementation of policies that facilitate the participation of women in the public sector workforce (such as housing facilities for female school teachers in rural and remote areas).

Public organizations and agencies at national and sub-national levels, as well as public/private partnerships and organizations performing outsourced public service functions, are eligible for nominations, which must be made by another entity than the institution being nominated.

Online nominations are being accepted at: http://www.unpan.org/applyunpsa2012 , and the deadline has been extended to 31 December 2012.

Winners will be announced on 23 June 2013, United Nations Public Service Day.

For more information about the UNPSA application process, please visit: http://unpsa.org/